One of the things that D and I are working toward is eating more foods that we know the source of. Or foods we make from scratch. It is a bit more time consuming but we have found that the results are worth it.
As we work toward that end, a couple of months ago, I bought a cheese making kit from Amazon. This is the one - Mozzarella and Ricotta Cheese Making Kit
. $25 and it has enough rennet and salt and citric acid to make many many batches of mozzarella cheese (something like 40 batches). And you can use the leftover whey to make ricotta cheese. So it is like a double win. It takes about 30 minutes, a gallon of milk and the stuff in the kit to make 3/4 of a lb of mozzarella cheese. The instructions are very easy to follow and our first batch turned out to be amazingly tasty. The only thing I would do differently is to get some food safe gloves since stretching the cheese when it is so hot is not entirely comfortable. The cheese was softer and smoother than the stuff you get in the store. I added a bit of extra salt since I knew we would be using it for a Caprese Salad appetizer later that night.
Cheese making aside, this is one of the easiest appetizers ever and perfect for a summer evening on the patio.
Caprese Salad
Ingredients
- Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
- Fresh Tomatoes
- Fresh Basil Paste (which is what you use when Meijer is totally sold out of fresh Basil and ends up being so good)
- Olive Oil
- Grey Finishing Sea Salt
Directions
- Slice fresh mozzarella into thin slices about 1/4 inch thick
- Spread a thin layer of basil paste onto each slice
- Slice tomato the same thickness
- Layer on a plate
- Drizzle with olive oil
- Sprinkle with finishing salt
You can serve with a basket of crostini or do as we did and skip those letting the tomato, basil and cheese flavors shine alone. Don't skip the glass of wine, though. :)
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