I feel very fortunate to live just a few blocks away from one of the best spots in Brooklyn: Rooftop Farms. I started hearing and reading about Rooftop Farms when I moved to the neighborhood almost a year ago.  It wasn’t until this past weekend, however, that I finally took some time to head over and buy some produce at their Sunday market.

Lucky for me, I happened to arrive just as they were about to start a talk on growing tomatoes.  While I lack an outdoor space to start a garden in, my roommate and I have big plans for a window farm. Garden or no garden, the tomato talk was fascinating and packed full of neat facts like how to identify plant diseases.  I even learned a little history on tomatoes.  Thomas Jefferson, an avid gardener, was one of the few people to grow them back in 18th century America.  The story goes that they were thought to be poisonous and were grown purely as a decorative plant until sometime in the 19th century when a man stood on the steps of a courthouse and ate a whole bushel of them, declaring them safe to eat.

Another neat fact about tomatoes that I learned from Dr. Oz (via Oprah) a long time ago:  lycopene, found in tomatoes is known to help in the prevention of most cancers and heart disease.  Since it takes 165 raw tomatoes to equal 10 tablespoons of tomato sauce, cooked tomato sauce is the best way to go and adding a little olive oil helps with absorption.  If you’re going to have tomato sauce though, make it yourself.  Store-bought sauce is often packed with sugar and other unnecessary ingredients. You can read more about the health benefits of tomatoes here.

After learning how to stake and train tomato plants, I headed back inside to the market where I purchased some gorgeous cucumbers and sampled some delicious pickles they had prepared from them.  It was then that I decided that from now on, Sunday dinners would be inspired by produce that I purchase at the Rooftop Farms market.  Since the crops they pick and sell change on a weekly basis, it will be a great way to inspire new recipes.

Inspired by the cucumbers, I made two attempts at gazpacho.  The first was a cucumber, tomato, avocado gazpacho.

This turned out to be more of a cucumber, tomato, avocado puree due to the consistency of the avocado.  Still, it was quite tasty. After my first attempt, I ditched the avocado and aimed for a more gazpacho like gazpacho and the result was completely different from the first soup but equally delicious and a tad more refreshing.  I topped off both with a greek yogurt, goat cheese sauce to balance it all out.

Here is how I made these….

Cucumber, Avocado & Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
1 avocado
1 cucumber peeled and seeded
1 tomato
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 small shallot
1 clove garlic
1 scallion
1/4 cup vegetable broth
4 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup 0% greek yogurt

Chop up the avocado, cucumber, tomato, yellow pepper, shallot, garlic and scallion and place in food processor. Blend to desired consistency and add vegetable broth, blending once more. Pour into bowl, place in refrigerator and rinse food processor. While chilling the soup, add goat cheese and greek yogurt to processor and blend until smooth. Pour on top of soup and add some extra chopped scallions for garnish. Serve cold

Gazpacho

Ingredients:
1 cucumber peeled and seeded
1 tomato
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 small shallot
1 clove garlic
1 scallion
1/2 cup tomato juice
4 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup 0% greek yogurt

Chop half of the cucumber, tomato, yellow pepper, shallot, scallion and garlic. Add to food processor and blend until finely chopped. Add tomato juice and blend for a few seconds, making sure not to puree too much. Pour into bowl, add the remainder of the other half (except for yellow peppers) and blend until just finely chopped. Combine with first mixture in bowl. Top with remaining diced yellow peppers, yogurt goat cheese sauce (see above) and scallions for garnish.