Favorite Food Find of the Week: Say Queso!!

Have you ever ordered a dish from a Mexican restaurant and wondered about that smooth, creamy cheese on top? It's almost white and it's so creamy - much creamier than the store-bought shredded cheese you buy in the bag. I love to eat Mexican food so I tend to incorporate a lot of Mexican flavors into many of the dishes I make. This week I found two great cheeses that add great finishing touches to any meal.

Campesino cheese is a Mexican artisan cheese, meaning it is made by hand the old fashioned way and has a more complex taste than other mass produced cheese. It is a cows milk cheese often used in quesedillas. It's a softer cheese than cheddar, which helps it to melt nicely. Because of its

soft texture, it's important to keep it in the refrigerator until you're ready to grate it.

Another cheese I discovered this week is Tetilla cheese. This Spanish cheese is also made from cows milk and is considered to be a semi-hard cheese. It's almost white, very creamy and has a hint of sweetness to it. Tetilla cheese is also perfect

for grading.

I used the Campesino cheese this week when making my own version of grilled, stuffed burritos. The cheese melted nicely on top of the hot filling and gave it a nice mild flavor in contrast to the spiciness of the other ingrediants. Keep in mind this cheese is not limited to Mexican food, I even use it when making breakfast skillets.

Along with these great cheeses, there's a condiment that I always look for when ordering a dinner at a Mexican restaurant and that is pico de gallo. If it has pico de gallo in it, I'm all over it! This salsa-like condiment goes with just about anything and some people even use it instead of a regular salsa. I thought I'd share my recipe for a simple pico de gallo.

Pico de Gallo

4 plum or Roma tomatoes (seeded and diced)

3 Jalapeno peppers (seeded and finely chopped)

1 small red onion (finely chopped)

1/4 cup fresh cilantro (chopped)

3 Tbsp lime juice

Salt

Simply mix all of the ingrediant together and serve! Be sure to add the salt last because the lime juice and salt work off of one anoher and you don't want to end up with salty pico de gallo.

Now that I know how easy it is to make great pico de gallo at home, I will never have tacos or burritos without it! I always make it first to give the ingrediants time to meld. Using the Campesino cheese and my homemade pico de gallo, my Mexican dinner was restaurant quality and so yummy!

I hope these tips are helpful to you the next time you have a Mexican dinner night!