Homemade Mozzarella Cheese

Hey guys!
     Today is a good one- my fiancé finally did all the pushing and made me buckle down and actually commit to making homemade mozzarella cheese. I thought it would be easy, but still time consuming and a little difficult, and I was worried about getting all the ingredients too. Let me tell you- I was wrong! It was pretty easy to get the ingredients- citric acid is available in stores (just google it in your area), and you can order rennet online anywhere (got mine on Amazon- used animal rennet, make sure to refrigerate after receiving!). It was SO easy to make the cheese, and it only took maybe 30 minutes all together.
I'm going to link to the recipe we used, but show you the process through our pictures too, because we (but mostly fiancé J have made it twice now). It is so easy, and so delicious.
Most recipes around are quite similar, and the one the we used is here from The Kitchn.

The ingredients and most of the tools- milk, distilled water, citric acid, and rennet. You'll also need salt and  that thermometer at the back of the pic :)

Warm milk to room temperature, then add in your citric acid and water.

Heat to 90 F, then add rennet and water mixture.

Remove from heat, and stir for 30 seconds.

Cover and let sit for 5 minutes.

Gently run knife through curds, cutting into rough squares. (We used a plastic knife because this is a non-stick pot)

Return to heat and gently stir curds until the temperature reaches 105 F and the curds start to gather away from the whey.

Remove from heat, mix together curds for 5 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon, and you have this!

Reserve the whey (on the left) for storing the cheese (among other uses) later. Put cheese in a microwave safe bowl and microwave until the cheese reaches 135 F, heating 30 seconds at a time. Strain off the whey.

Wearing rubber gloves (these were not quite thick enough for the heat), add the salt then gently knead the mozzarella and shape into balls, whatever size you like.

Here are the finished balls from the first batch of cheese. We made two larger balls from the second batch. Store the cheese in a bowl of the whey to keep it moist and fresh.

And here's the cheese over tomatoes and basil- just awaiting a little balsamic! yum! (The cheese from the first batch, kneaded a little more and stored not as submerged in whey, is on the left, and the more gently kneaded and stored totally submerged in whey, is on the right).

Savor it! (thanks again for all the help and work, J!)
love, rue