Porra!

I'm sorta taking a break from wedding land and may be a bit MIA for a while. I'm not stressing about anything right now and am feeling really great about the wedding - so that means I'm gonna ride this wave for as long as I can and try not to think about anything lest I stir up something that should have been left alone. :)

So today, in honor of the ridiculous heat and humidity here in the Twin Cities and because I don't have AC and definitely don't want to do any sort of cooking or heat inducing activity, I have a lovely recipe for you. Its a cold soup that require zero (or very little, depending) cooking!

My brother is currently living abroad in Spain and has been for a few years now. He used to live in a little town called La Roda where they served a nummy soup called porra.

Its a simple tomato based soup that is surprisingly refreshing and can be garnished with tons of various things to fit your taste. Here it is shown with some hard boiled egg and tuna (yeah, not the best looking picture...but it does taste good!). A friend of my brother sent this and she notes that this is a rough recipe from her memory. The amounts can be played with a lot to fit your taste.

What you need to make porra:

• Blender
• 2-3 slices of day old bread (or I just lightly toast some bread)
• roughly 6 medium size tomatoes
  
• half a red pepper
• 1 garlic clove
  
• few glugs of olive oil
• very small dash of vinegar (optional)
  
• salt to taste

Peel the tomatoes as best you can and cut into quarters. Peeling over the blender will keep all the juices for the soup. Also peel the red pepper as much as you can and cut into chunks. (I gave up very quickly on peeling the pepper and it didn't seem to make a difference. I haven't tried it with keeping the tomato skins yet.) Cut bread into smaller chunks. Chop up garlic. Watch out for both the garlic and the vinegar in this recipe - a little bit goes a long way!

Put everything (bread, tomatoes, pepper, garlic, oil, vinegar, salt) in the blender and blend until smooth. It should be thick - not runny like tomato soup. Chill in fridge and serve with your choice of condiments; hard-boiled egg, tuna, ham, prosciutto (delicious!), pepper, avocado...play around! Also great with a nice crusty baguette.

Hope this helps on those days where any additional heat in your house is too much! Let me know if you try it, what you think, and what you chose to garnish your soup with!

Bon appetit!
Jen