What a special treat!
One of my FAVORITE CHEFS OF ALL TIME, Chef Wendy Landiak, joined us at the Grow Indie Gardens while taping Episode 5 of our cooking show (online in a week!), to make a super-fresh gazpacho.
My new favorite memory of Wendy is now the image of her walking through the garden, cutting fresh veggies with her chef’s knife, and then lugging her Vitamix to a hay bale to set up her workspace.
It truly doesn’t get fresher than this, folks!
Garden Gazpacho with Wendy of Balasia + The Honey Underground
RECIPE for Garden Gazpacho
As you can see, nothing was meticulously measured, so here’s an idea of what went into the soup:
- Fill a blender halfway with various tomatoes (rough chop large tomatoes into large chunks)
- 1 bunch basil, leaves only
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 medium cucumber, cut into chunks
- 1 tsp (or more to taste) smoked salt and/or Himalayan pink salt (if you don’t have these, regular salt will do, but it may not be as exotic!)
- 2-3 hot peppers (lemondrop pepper, jalapeno, or hot pepper of choice! Removing the seeds will cut down on the heat. Add these to taste. Maybe start with one if you’re wary of the heat!)
- 1 and 1/2 bell peppers (red and/or green), rough chopped in chunks
Start blending on a low-medium speed until gazpacho is blended. Stop while it still maintains chunky texture! That’s all.
Optional: Drizzled with good olive oil, torn pieces of stale bread as makeshift croutons, garnish with fresh basil, add olive oil and heat on the stove for a pasta sauce

Wendy Landiak of Balasia and The Honey Underground on Save the Kales! making Garden Gazpacho… IN the garden.
Wendy cut up a bell pepper to make some impromptu spoons. And hey – it’s even kid-approved!
You can find Wendy at the Balasia stand at Farmer’s Markets across the Lehigh Valley. And if you EVER have the chance to attend her supper club, The Honey Underground (named after a poetic way of describing carrots), you MUST. GO. You must.
Find out where Wendy’s going, what she’s making, and how you can get her food by following the FACEBOOK page, or checking out her WEBSITE.
Did I stress how delicious her food is? (Here’s a post I made about The Honey Underground — pictures!) Organic, local, always vegan, fusion-food inspired by cuisines around the world. She also caters events, will do private cooking classes, and is knowledgable about food allergies and even Ayurvedic cooking.
I really enjoyed this. I really wish that I was right there with you. The whole thing, the garden, the soup, looks so wonderful.
Thanks Violet! You can learn more about the garden (and if you’re near Kutztown, PA you can go, work there for an hour and then take home a bunch of garden goodies for FREE! simple as that!) as it’s on the new episode of the show. It’s stunning and so impressive. I hope you get a chance to eat some of Wendy’s food!
haha, loving the pepper spoons!
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Fantastic yummy vegan garden soup! At our house, we do not say “raw”, we say our food is “LIVING”! Great video, we love it 🙂
“Living” I love that!!
now that is my kind of raw soup!!! so cool that she made it right there garden side. I would love to do that–so connected to nauture.
Peace and Raw Health,
Elizabeth
Isn’t Wendy the best? It was a fun day.. and the soup was delicious, too!