Wow! Sixteen plants Lilacs! You must have quite a spread. I had 3 in my garden, and pulled one out before it ate the tomato plant next to it. I'm really having a moment of garden envy, thinking of your peach trees and imagining the space you must have to have 16 zucchini plants. Sigh.

I can't verify how good the Back to Basics Blender Express is, but I've had fantastic success with their Smoothie Maker. And with Back to Basics you can order replacement parts for just about any of their products. I'm very happy with their products.

My blender is also an old Oster, got it as a wedding present in 1974, so it's been going strong for 35+ years. I seldom use it, though it got a good workout when the girls were still home, making chocolate malts and power shakes and fruit smoothies and salad dressings. Now I use the Kitchen Aid food processor for things like hummus and Jessica's lime chipotle marinade, it does a good job, better than the old Oster. I could go the rest of my life without a smoothie and I don't drink to speak of so the blended icy drinks the girls made in the summertime aren't an issue either. the Kitchenaid is harder to pour a chocolate malted out of without spilling, but it can do everything that I used to do in the blender, plus some. It's not that good at making bread or pastry, though I didn't do that in the blender either, and if I want big chunks of something like tomatoes for salsa, I still use a knife, the FP makes mush too quickly. Annie

Oh dear - let's see what I did :-) Basically, I started with the Gazpacho recipe in WS but wanted it chunkier and easier. Chopped 1 red onion in Vitamix - saved 1/4 cup for another recipe. Put 3/4 to 1 cup in a bowl for later. Add 1 chopped seedless (skinned or not) cucumber, 1.5-2 cups chopped heirloom tomatoes(or whatever you want - I used a mixture of Amish paste, heirloom, and regular tomatoes), 1 TB lemon juice, 2 tsp fresh chopped parsley, 1 TBS oil to this bowl and refrigerate Start a second bowl and put the rest of the onions in it. Core(if you want) another 2 lbs of tomatoes and quarter - put 1/2 in the bowl and the rest in another bowl.(or just combine them all - it works a well as you are going to liquify everything in the end). 1 large or 2 small garlic cloves Salt and pepper to taste (I keep things low sodium but added a bit for our guests) 2 TBS lemon 1/2 tsp fresh thyme 2 TBS Sherry vinegar (I didn't have any - so used 1 TBS Apple cider vinegar and 1 TBS port wine - LOL) Blend 1/2 of the tomatoes going from 1 to max until completely smooth. Then turn to level 1 to "burp" it. Pour into a dish Add rest of the tomatoes and another cuke and repeat. Just before serving, add the fresh veggies to the soup or ladle soup and have guests add the veggies. Now, the WS calls to use 2 cups of cubed french bread and blend that into the first batch of tomatoes(in the vitamin) but I didn't do that step - I didn't have any french bread and wasn't sure about how it would do. Serve with either plain yogurt or sour cream. Hope I didn't miss anything.