Thai gazpacho

It was a very hot summer here, so we ate a lot of cold soups. This one turned out very nicely, although if you want it to have a reasonably attractive colour, make sure you use yellow tomatoes, not red ones. Otherwise, though, it's all very tasty. Based on this recipe.

Ingredients:
3-4 large yellow tomatoes, cut into chunks
1 full Noa cucumber, or 1/2 English cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 yellow pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
1 onion
1-2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp lemongrass (paste, fresh, or frozen)
1 thumb-size piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
juice and zest of 1 lime
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp chilli paste OR 1 chilli (or to taste)
mint, (Thai) basil and coriander to taste (should be about 1/2 cup or so)
1/2 a 400ml tin of coconut milk (you can use more too, but keep some for serving)
seasoning

Throw the tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, and onion into a blender and blend. Add the garlic, lemongrass, ginger, lime juice and zest, fish sauce, chilli, herbs and seasoning, and then as much coconut milk as you want (less is more, add little by little until you have as much as you want). Blend the mixture until smooth.

Put in the fridge to cool for a few hours. Serve with some bread on the side. 

Vegetarian buckwheat, mushroom, ginger and lemongrass soup

After cooking, cooling down. Lovely stuff.

This is a simple soup that we made to use up some buckwheat. It was inspired by a fantastic soup we had in Pärnu at Mahedik, and then adapted using this recipe as a basis. The main thing is not to overdo it with the buckwheat, as it absorbs quite a bit of liquid:

1 leek, cut into 1-cm chunks
2 celery stalks, chopped up
2 tbsp lemongrass, or 2 stalks chopped up. If you're using fresh lemongrass, don't cut it up too thinly, as it doesn't really soften much
2-cm piece of ginger, minced or finely sliced
2 carrots, chopped up
500g mushrooms - use a number of varieties for a more flavoursome dish
1 cup (250ml) buckwheat, raw or toasted. Don't overdo this!
8 cups (i.e. 2 l) chicken or vegetable stock
Thyme, to taste (about 1 tbsp)
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, fry up the leek, celery, lemongrass, ginger, and carrots for a few minutes. Add in the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes more, then add in the buckwheat, stock, thyme, lemon juice and salt and pepper, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes or so. If you need more liquid, add it in during cooking, or you could feasibly add it afterwards too.