August means BLT's

DISCLAIMER: I am forgetful and there are no pictures in this post.  I will try to be better.

Since a farmer's market started in my neighborhood last year, and since I started going to the farmer's market near my work place, August has been all about the BLT.  The only thing that goes into that sandwich that I can't get at these markets is the oil, mustard, and lemons for the mayonnaise.  Artisan bread, heirloom and/or organically grown local tomatoes, farm fresh eggs (for the mayo), artisan cured pork belly, ARUGULA.  Using these ingredients, the appeal of the BLT finally crystallized for me.  Consider the difference between a sandwich made with those ingredients and one made with Wonder bread, Oscar Meyer bacon, Hellmann's, and those bland and mealy supermarket tomatoes.  Is it any wonder that for years I was mystified by the appeal?  No longer.  For the last two years I have loudly proclaimed the BLT as the paragon of sandwiches.

Last night was kind of the first of the season.  I say kind of, because rather than use tomato on the sandwich, I made gazpacho.  So gazpacho and BT sandwiches. For the sandwich, the bacon was the excellent spice-cured pork belly from Crafthouse. The bread was, I think, Pugilese from Labriola.   I don't remember the name of the vendor that provided the arugula and the mint (for the gazpacho).  The eggs for the mayo were from Midnight Sun Farm.  The mayo recipe is basically the one you would find in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  The only difference is that I substitute 1/4 cup of olive oil for the vegetable oil.  Anyway, make mayo, fry up planks of pork belly, toast bread, assemble.  God I love that sandwich.

As for the gazpacho, there's a bunch of ways to do it, the easiest being the food processor.  I bought a food-mill in the last year so I wanted to use that.  Here's the ingredient list, all vegetables and bread roughly chopped:

Tomatoes, cored
Cucumber, peeled, seeded
Green Bell Pepper, stemmed, cored, seeds and ribs removed
Hot pepper (midnight sun farm), stemmed, cored, etc.
Yellow squash (because I needed to use it)
Garlic
Ice Water
Stale bread
Mint (or other bright fresh herb)
Olive Oil and Sherry Vinegar

For efficiency, I put the ice water in my fat separator and put the chunks of bread in that.
All the vegetables went into a big bowl and I poured in some of the cold water from the separator.  I went at it all with the immersion blender until it was mostly liquid.  By now, the bread was nicely softened, so I took it out of the separator and pureed it in as well.

At this point, it would be best to let the mixture sit in the fridge for a while so that flavors can mingle (I didn't, but you should).

I placed the food-mill on top of another large bowl and fitted it with the medium blade.  In went the puree.  It only took two batches.  Everything looked great.  I added oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.  I then did a chiffonade of the mint, but in retrospect I wouldn't have done that just for me and the wife as those threads become problematic when you say "this damn spoon is too slow" and you start drinking the soup out of the bowl.  better to just give them a rough-chop.  For company?  Chiffonade away.

Feel free to garnish as you like: cucumber, croutons, green onions, other herbs.

I will be so sad when these tomatoes go away for another year.