Hi there!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post but I was away for a few weeks enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful coun­try of Spain and spend­ing time at our lovely lit­tle cot­tage in the Kawarthas.

If you have a chance to visit the cities of Barcelona and Madrid, I urge you to do so. They’re both so beau­ti­ful and elec­tric, and the food and wine is out­stand­ing. It took a few days to adjust to the Span­ish lifestyle — eat­ing din­ner at 11 o’clock, for exam­ple, but when we did, we really embraced it. The peo­ple are so hos­pitable and proud of all that their coun­try has to offer. One of my favourite after­noon tapas was their gaz­pa­cho, a gaz­pa­cho unlike any­thing I’ve ever made before. It was delicious…healthy and refreshing.

When I returned home, I searched the web for an authen­tic Andalu­sian gaz­pa­cho and thank­fully, I was able to repro­duce the soup exactly, with a few minor changes. See below for the link.

On another note, I hope you’ve all been train­ing out­doors, on the bike, on the trails, on the road.…I’ve been doing some great rid­ing, run­ning and a bit of swim­ming. I’m con­tem­plat­ing doing a half iron­man in Sep­tem­ber, so long as I stay healthy and injury free. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s the link for the gaz­pa­cho; it’s really yummy. In Spain, they serve it ice cold in chiled glasses. No spoon required.

I promise to blog again soon but please be sure to check out my face­book page and fol­low me on insta­gram at bethrichiefitness.

http://​myk​itchenin​spain​.blogspot​.ca/​2​0​1​3​/​0​8​/​t​h​e​-​g​a​z​p​a​c​h​o​-​d​i​a​r​i​e​s​-​d​a​y​s​-​1 – 7.html

My changes to the recipe are as follows:

I used 1 slice of bread (french or ital­ian) and just enough water to soften

omit­ted the cumin (not authentic)

4 Tbsp good qual­ity Span­ish olive oil (this is when it pays to pur­case the good stuff!)

¹⁄₄ onion (I used Vidalia)