do I need to peel tomatoes for this gazpacho?

Question

making a gazpacho that is just uncooked tomatoes, bread crumbs, garlic and seasonings, blended together til smooth. I have a super duper Vita Mix blender, so everything gets processed as smooth as I need/want it to be. With that in mind, is there any reason I need to peel the tomatoes (which the recipe calls for) or can I just throw it all into the VitaMix and let it all get blended together?
thanks in advance for your help
Susan

Answer

I don't, I just roughly chop them and throw them in my food processor. Turns out just fine for me...that and I like how it adds to the texture.

Answer

I skin them and also remove the seeds. 
Doing these two things contributes to a less bitter taste.
YMMV!

Answer

I was going to respond with a conditional, "if" and "except," but then I read "Vita Mix." I'm sure the recipe calls for you to chop up the ingredients too, but you have a Vita Mix! The only cutting I'd do is for the tomato core/stem.

Answer

I'm in the peeling camp. Perhaps I'm just fussy. It's not really too hard to blanch and shock tomatoes. The skins come right off after that.

Answer

Do you own a food mill? For my gazpacho, I use a hand blender to mix all the ingredients together and then run the mixture through a food mill. It gives great texture to the gazpacho and gets rid of any remaining seeds and skin.

Answer

this is Susan, the original poster. I think the VitaMix can be trusted to blend everything up, seeds, even cores (though I do cut those out). I think what I was really asking was whether you thought the recipe telling you/me to peel the tomatoes was about the peels being hard to get as finely ground as the rest of the tomato, or whether it might be a taste issue (like why you might peel a pineapple or something else where the skin as a different/more bitter taste than the rest of the fruit/vegetable)

Answer

so here's what I think it's all about: even with the VitaMix, the peels take the longest to pulverize. And there were a few little bits that were just resistant to that final transformation. I didn't especially care that the soup was 100% liquid with no bits at all. The little bits that remained were really so few, and the pieces so tiny. But If I cared, I could have strained it. Or done it in smaller batches in the VitaMix. Or maybe just a longer time in the VitaMix. Or peeled the tomatoes. 

thanks for all your input and the gazpacho clarification..............I got the recipe, though, from a local restaurant, and THEY called it gazpacho. So there you go.

Answer

I don't peel or seed mine and in the Vitamix or Blendtec it becomes as smooth as silk. I might if I was using a food processor.

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do I need to peel tomatoes for this gazpacho?

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