Queso Fresco

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 Gallon of whole milk
• 2 tablespoons of salt
• 1/2 cup of white vinegar
• 1 very large pot
• 100% cotton cheese cloth
• 1 large colander
• Binder clips (optional)

Preparation & cooking

Dump milk into large pot, add the salt, stir gently (or violently if you want to make your kitchen messy).

Heat milk on the stove at medium-high setting for approximately 15 minutes.  While the milk is heating, prep the colander with the cheese cloth.

Lay out approximately 6 inches of double layered cheese cloth, cut, and place inside the colander.  Using the
binder clips, secure the cheese cloth to the colander with several clips around the edges of the colander. The cheese is fairly heavy and will pull the cheese cloth off the sides and into the middle of of the colander if not secured with clips.  Set the colander/cheese cloth off to the side for now (mine is placed in a mixing bowl in the picture on the right)

Return to the heating milk, check the temperature (by this time it should be fairly hot) if at 190 degrees, remove from stove.  While stirring, add the white vinegar to the milk.  Immediately the milk will curd (felt like a science project), and will separate from the whey.  Let this stand for 5 minutes

Once 5 minutes have passed, place your cheese-cloth-wrapped-colander in the sink.  I recommend using a small mixing bowl to place underneath the colander as what we're about to do is in a sink (dirty).  Pour the milk/curd into the colander.  The cheese cloth will separate the cheese from the whey liquid.  You may have to dump out the whey at the bottom of the mixing bowl a couple of times.  Let the cheese/curd drain for 15-20 minutes so all of the whey is off of the cheese..

Place the cheese into a medium sized tubberware.  Using a spoon, compress the separated curds until it resembles something that is more solid looking.  The cheese will have a consistency similar to goat cheese, crumby, dry but rubbery.

Notes:  This was my first attempt at making my own cheese.  My first reaction was "I am going to make a great  queso dip!" Problem is, this "cheese" doesn't melt, it just gets softer.

So what do you do with it?  Well you can eat it plain, but it won't have a lot of flavor as this cheese isn't aged nor did we add anything special to it.  I read you can light fry it, which is fairly good, or you can use it as a cracker spread, bread spread, taco garnish etc.

I will come back to this cheese with some ideas i've written down to flavor this up and give it a true use.  For now, try to make this for fun. One thing I would change, add some salt after you pore the liquid into the colander.

Barbacoa Tacos

Preparation time:  15-20 minutes

Total cook time: 8-hours

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized crock pot
• 2 teaspoons ground Ancho Chile pepper
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (or ground sea salt)
• 1 teaspoon dried Mexican Oregano crushed
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds fresh beef brisket, trimmed of excess fat 
• 1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, un-drained
• 1 fresh jalopeano Chile pepper, stemmed, seeded and minced
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• White corn tortillas, warmed
• Mexican crema or sour cream
• fresh cilantro
• Diced white onions (optional)
• Shredded Cojita cheese 
• salsa (optional)

To start, I substituted the brisket for a round bottom roast because of availability, but the remaining ingredients are the same as the recipe.  The round bottom roast is a bit tougher than the brisket but slow cooking it will tenderize it

Preparing & cooking the round:

1. Combine the ground ancho chilie pepper, salt, oregano, cumin, salt and black pepper in a small bowl.  I also minced the Jalopeano and sliced the garlic at this step, combine the minced jalopeanos and garlic in a bowl and set to the side.  Please be careful with the jalopeanos, do not touch your eyes, nose, ears, mouth etc.  The oils from the pepper will get on your skin and will burn for about 30-minutes
2. Remove the round from the packaging and set on the cutting board.  Notice one side has a pretty decent size layer of fat, while the other is fairly learn (see images below)
3. Cover the meat with the ground ancho chilie pepper, salt, oregano, cumin, salt and black pepper evenly on all sides of the meat until covered completely (image below)
4. Open the canned tomatoes and add to crock pot along with the jalopeano and garlic
5. Place the round on top of the tomato/jalopeano/garlic mixture with the fatty side facing down in the crock pot.  Set to low and allow to cook for 6-8 hours. The lower temperature/cook time allows the tough portions of the meat to break up which allows better shredding and increases the tenderness.

After cooking the round:

1. Remove the round from the crock pot and place on a cutting board. Starting with the fatty side, cut the layer of fat off the roast and discard into the trash
2. Using two larger forks, shred the meat by using the forks to pull the meat in opposite directions from the center towards the outside.  Imagine both forks vertically place in the middle of the round and pull each fork in the opposite direction, essentially stripping the meat in layers at a time.  This can either be done from left to right, or top to bottom (referencing the image above the shredded beef).  Top to bottom creates thinner shreds while left to right creates more chunky shreds. 
3. Place the shredded meat back into the crock pot and on medium/high for another 10 minutes.  Add the lime juice at this step.
4. Warm the tortillas in the oven, you will need 2-tortillas for each taco serving, up to 8 servings total for 16-tortillas max.  Place the tortillas in a cooking sheet and place in the oven at 325 degrees and let them warm for 5-minutes
5. Snip the cilantro for garnishing the tacos
6. Prepare each taco with the shredded round, cojita, cilantro and the Mexican cream sauce.

Enjoy!  Comments and feedback are welcomed!

Adobo Fish Tacos

Prep Time: 20-30 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Fish preparation

• 2-3 fish fillets (halibut is preferred, I used talapia for price) approximately 2lbs
• 4 teaspoons of Ancho Chili powder
• 2 tablespoons of lime juice
• 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 6-8 tortillas, each taco will use 2 tortillas
• Cotija cheese
• white corn tortillas

Coleslaw

• 1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream
• 1/4 cup low-fast mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon lime zest
• 2 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2/3 teaspoons of salt
• 3 cups of green cabbage finely shredded cabbage

Preparing the adobo rub:

Combine chili powder, lime juice, oil, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and paper in a small mixing bowl.  Rub the adobo rub all over the fish.  It is fairly difficult to evenly spread the rub over the fish given the olive oil and it can take up to 10-minutes.  Very frustrating but well worth the efforts

Adobo rub ready for the fish

Initially sprinkled the rub as evenly as possibly

After about 10 minutes of mending the rub into the fish, the fish becomes a nice dark orange/red color.  Place the fish/plate in the fridge to marinade for 20-30 minutes

Preparing the coleslaw:


Mix the cabbage, mayonnaise, sour cream, cilantro, lime zest, sugar, salt, and pepper in a small mixing bowl.   Mix until the ingredients until the coleslaw is smooth and creamy looking.  Put this in the refrigerator for now

Cooking the fish:
Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the fish cooking.  However, it is a fairly simple process.  The fish can be grilled or pan fried and takes about 5 minutes on each side of the filet. Either pan or grill cooking will need some olive oil so the fish does not stick/burn.  The fish will begin breaking apart fairly easy once it's close to being fully cooked.


While the fish is cooking, prepare the tortillas by lightly frying then on the stove.  Use a very small amount of butter for each tortilla.  Flip occasionally, place in oven to stay warm until the fish is complete.

The proper way to eat the tacos is by lightly shredded the easily crumbling cotija cheese and spreading some of this cheese in-between the two tortillas for each taco.  Follow this up by placing 1/3 of the talapia filet in the middle of the tortilla with a spoonful of coleslaw.

Enjoy!  Comments and feedback are welcomed!

Galli's Ciabatta Pesto Sandwich

Prep time:  5-minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 ciabatta bread
• 3-slices of oven-roasted turkey
• 1-slice of pepper jack cheese
• 4-slices of cucumber
• 1-hot green chili pepper
• 2-slices of tomatoes
• Pesto 
• mayonnaise

Preparation:

1. Cut the ciabatta bread in half, toast on medium
2. Remove bread from toaster, spread enough pesto on one side of the bread so it is lightly covered evenly across the slice.  Apply a light amount of mayonnaise to the slice of bread with pesto on it.  This will keep the sandwich from drying out.  Apply mayonnaise to the other slice of bread if desired.
3. place cucumbers on the slice of bread that is thinnest, 4 cucumber slices should be enough to mostly cover this piece of bread.  
4. Slice open the hot pepper so you have two-equal sides (cut long-ways down the middle).  Remove the seeds and cut each slice in half so you have a total of 4 slices of pepper.  Place the pepper slices on top of the tomatoes distributed evenly across the slice of bread
5. Place the two pieces of tomato on top of the pepper
6. Apply the slice of pepper jack cheese
7. Apply the 3-slices of turkey
8. place larger slice of bread on top to complete the sandwich
9. Enjoy