Homemade Crumbling Cheese and Street Tacos

Our cheese making adventures have continued steadily since first whipping up a batch of delicious, creamy ricotta last month. Having mastered ricotta and even making some amazing mascarpone, we next tried out a personal favorite: queso blanco.

We've been buying this crumbling cheese for years to use in our pulled pork nachos and other Mexican dishes, so it only made sense to make some at home. Although there are more steps in this process than from ricotta or mascarpone, there's actually less ingredients. All you need here is one gallon of whole milk, 2 tsp. of citric acid, and another tsp. of salt.

If you want to throw in extra herbs or seasonings, cilantro is a good option. Below you can see we're also using a thin sieve and some cheese cloth.

To start this we're cooking the milk slowly to 195 degrees. As soon as it hits the proper temp, we pull it off the heat and add in the citric acid, which will make the curds form.

The milk and citric acid is covered and left to sit for a full five five minutes, until the curds and whey separate. Here we're pouring the curds into the sieve and cheese cloth, with a bowl underneath to catch the whey.

After draining for a few minutes, here's our cheese, which will be tasty but isn't yet in the right shape and consistency.

To get it where we want it (and ensure we get that awesome crumbly texture), we wrap the curds tightly in cheese cloth and form it into a wheel shape.

We need to put some constant pressure on the cheese for about an hour. Since I don't fancy standing there pushing down for 60 minutes, I've filled the empty milk jug about 3/4 up with water and am using two plates to squeeze the cheese. This will remove any excess liquid and give us the texture we want.

After an hour the cloth is removed and we've got a wheel just like the "queso fresco" branded cheese you'd get at the supermarket with the exact same flavor and ability to easily crumble. Here's we've crumbled up half the wheel to use for street style tacos and corn on the cob!

This will be a combination of indoor and outdoor cooking, with the corn to be grilled outside, while the taco meat will be pulled pork. We'll make that in the crock pot just like with our game day pulled pork nachos, but we'll use taco seasonings instead of our usual rub.

Mexican street corn is a whole different beast from traditional corn on the cob, as its served slathered in sauce and rolled in cheese. Here Megan has whipped up a sauce of mayo, chili powder, garlic powder, lime juice, and pepper. Feel free to improvise here - throw in any seasonings that strike your fancy!

Here's our cooked corn, pulled fresh off the grill and ready to be taken to the next level.

First Megan is brushing them with the sauce, which will let the cheese adhere to the sides.

Now its rolled in our awesome homemade cheese and ready to be mesilly (and make not mistake - this is messy) devoured.

Here's our corn with the "street" style tacos - a layer of homemade guacamole, some tender and juicy pulled pork, diced tomato, cilantro, a whole mess of crumbly cheese, and a squirt of fresh lime.