Ali’s Raw Tomato Soup

Heirloom tomatoes by madlyinlovewithlife via Flickr

Since we’re focusing on eating tons of fresh vegetables during this detox, we’re trying to be more creative than just eating salads and stir fries. Our fearless (and ever-so-patient) leader, Ali, gave us some recipes to help, and so far, the winner for us is her raw tomato soup.

• 3 organic, heirloom tomatoes
• 6 basil leaves
• 1 celery stalk
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/8 cup onion (one big ring slice from a big onion)
• juice of one lime
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp oregano
• black pepper to taste (a few dashes if you don’t love pepper will be just fine)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• one ripe avocado

Get the best, most flavorful tomatoes you can find. Wash everything that needs to be washed, coarse-chop the tomatoes, celery, and onion, and throw everything except the olive oil and avocado into your food processor or powerful blender. Puree the heck out of it. As it is mixing, slowly pour in the oil, which will emulsify the soup.

That’s it. You’re done. Dice the avocado and put some in each bowl. We ate this as two servings, which made the fat and calorie count kind of high, but that was all in the olive oil and avocado. You could cut back on the oil and skip the avocado, but you could also just embrace the healthy fat and lick your lips!

Yes, you could call it gazpacho, but I think most gazpacho recipes have bread crumbs, or call for garlic croutons.