Caprese Salad

 

You GUYS!

I learned how to make cheese and I am so excited!  You must excuse the hot mess hair here, because you can see how happy I am about this cheese!

This is actually how I spent my Mother’s Day.  As often happens on this blog, Spud and I were watching a show (The Amazing Race this time), and the contestants needed to braid freshly made mozzarella cheese, which somehow turned into I should made cheese, which became instead of doing anything other than church on Mother’s Day I’m learning to make cheese!

I ended up taking tips from here and here and fully expected a fail the first time, but you guys, I nailed it!  So excited!

So obviously, we needed to eat it immediately, so I made a Caprese Salad.  Ugh, so much more delicious with fresh cheese!

This recipe is also the perfect offering for this month’s Movies & Munchies pick, The Nonnas.  The movie is based on a real life New York restaurant that did indeed hire nonnas (grandmothers) as the chefs.  The movie is full of wonderful Italian dishes and in one food montage scene, a caprese salad appears - perfect!  And the movie was heart warming and sweet.  I highly recommend it!

To make the cheese, I used tips from this blog and this one.

Caprese Salad

Recipe from The Pioneer Woman

8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced

1-2 beefsteak tomatoes, sliced

Fresh basil

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

Add the balsamic vinegar to a small saucepan, bring to a boil.  Simmer until the vinegar is reduced to about a quarter of its original volume and is thickened.  Set aside to cool.

Arrange the mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil on a plate.

Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and serve.