To celebrate National Burger Month, we’ll be sharing burger recipes from some of our favorite Texas friends! This recipe comes from Kristi Reddell’s blog, Moms Confession.

Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Total time: 20 mins

Ingredients
1 lb hamburger meat
3 slices Tillamook Sliced Medium Cheddar Cheese
1 pack ranch dip mix
2 tablespoons Slap Ya Mama Seasoning (Cajun seasoning works too)
2 tablespoons worscheshire sauce
¼ cup real bacon bit pieces

Preparation
1. Mix by hand and form into patties
2. Cook on outdoor or indoor grill until well done

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By Tillamook

Breakfast in Bed is a classic Mother’s Day move. Don’t fret if your standard pancakes and eggs just won’t cut it this year – I’ve got some delicious ideas. Here’s my top 5 recipes for treating your Tillamama on Mother’s Day this year!

Tri-Berry Parfait with Granola and Tillamook Oregon Strawberry Yogurt
Start the morning off on a berry good note! This super-easy and delicious parfait is the perfect companion to a morning spent lounging in bed. Just top Tillamook Oregon Strawberry Yogurt with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and your favorite granola. Then lean back and dig in!

Almond Poppy Seed Muffins
If your mom’s got a sweet tooth, these almond poppy seed muffins from the blog Your Cup of Cake are sure to hit the spot. Don’t forget to use Tillamook Butter! Spoiler alert, there’s a delicious almond filling surprise when you bite in the middle.

Cheesy Frittata
Frittata – it’s a brunch classic! A hearty cheesy breakfast chock full of veggies and flavor that will set a great tone on the morning. Be sure to use lots of her favorite Tillamook Cheese!

Mixed Berry Tartlets made with Tillamook Light Lemon Squeeze Yogurt
This recipe comes from the blog Patty’s Food. These beautiful tartlets with Tillamook Light Lemon Squeeze Yogurt mixed into the pastry crème make for a delicious fruity tartlet perfect to treat your Tillamama. Top it off with your mom’s favorite fruit for an extra special breakfast.

Cheddar Bacon Waffles
These waffles from the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen are a dangerous combination of sweet and savory. This is a special treatment we could all get used to!

By Amalya

When life gives you lemons, we say wake up early and surprise Mom with Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes for Mother’s Day! This tangy, sweet and oh-so-satisfying combo of fresh, tart lemons, Tillamook French Vanilla Bean Yogurt, and crunchy poppy seeds is delicious on any given Sunday, but we think it’s particularly yummy as a special Mother’s Day treat.

Lemons are in recipes everywhere these days. And for good reason! They’re bright, tart, and they inspire all kinds of delicious delights (we got our own lemony inspiration here, here, and here). The lemon’s tanginess pairs so perfectly with the slightly sweet, cake-like consistency of these pancakes. Once we made ‘em, we knew they’d make the perfect centerpiece for our Mother’s Day brunch.

Overview
This recipe is simple and easily adaptable. While we made our pancakes from scratch using whole-wheat flour (for a healthy and sweet start to the day!), you can easily swap in all-purpose flour or a pancake mix—just be sure to add the Tillamook French Vanilla Bean Yogurt, lemon juice, lemon zest, and poppy seeds! These should be served warm (who could wait for them to cool, anyways!). We love pairing them with a dollop of Tillamook butter, pure maple syrup, and fresh berries on the side.

Ingredients
1½ cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1-2 tablespoon sugar
1 6oz cup Tillamook French Vanilla Bean Yogurt
½ cup skim milk
3 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 large eggs
Poppy seeds (add to your liking)

Preparation
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. In a medium bowl, mix together Tillamook French Vanilla Bean Yogurt, lemon zest, lemon juice, milk, and eggs. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients, mixing until combined. Then stir in poppy seeds.

Heat a lightly greased (we like using Tillamook Butter!) pan or griddle over medium heat. Cook until the pancake starts to bubble and they are golden brown and then flip.

What will you be cooking up for Mother’s Day? Take a pic and let us know @TillamookCheese or post a photo to our Facebook wall!

By Tillamook

The beauty of quiche is that you can make almost any flavor. Do you like bacon? Add it. Do you like spinach? Great, add that too. Once you know what ingredients you’re using, the only real question is, what cheese are you going to pile into your delicious quiche?

In an experiment to find out which Tillamook Cheese goes best with onion and leek quiche, I headed to the store and purchased both Tillamook Swiss Cheese and Shredded Tillamook Sharp Cheddar. I divided the recipe below in half and used Swiss in one and sharp cheddar in the other.

Placing two quiche on everyone’s plate, my friends were asked to pick their favorite. That’s when disaster struck. No one was willing to pick a favorite. It turns out both Swiss and Sharp Cheddar are excellent in quiche. I walked away from this experience learning that whatever Tillamook Cheese is in your fridge, it can be used in a quiche. My next experiment will be with bacon and Tillamook Smoked Medium Cheddar. I have a filling it will be a hit.

Ingredients
1 box frozen puff pastry
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
½ yellow onion
1 leek
6 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup of your favorite grated Tillamook Cheese
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
6 tablespoons melted Salted Tillamook Butter

Preparation
Let the puff pastry defrost and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thinly chop both the onion and the leek then add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a sauté pan and cook the onion and leek over medium low heat until translucent (5-10 minutes). Let the ingredients cool.

While the onions and leeks are cooking, combine eggs, cream, Tillamook Cheese, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper. After, stir in the cooked leeks and onions and set aside.

Carefully remove one sheet of puff pastry and place on a cutting board. Cover the puff pastry with melted butter using a brush and add another puff pastry onto of the butter. Repeat until you have 4 layers covered with butter.

Cut the puff pastry into squares slightly larger than your circular tins. We used mini muffin tins with a 2 inch diameter and cut our pastry squares to 2¾ inches. You want your puff pastry to be able to line the wall of your tin.

Fill your pastry cups about ⅔ of the way to the top and place in the oven for about 12 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy!

By Kelly

Mexican Bell Stuffed Peppers with Monterey Jack Cheese!

I love crock pots! When I first moved away from home it was one of the first kitchen accessories I got myself. I had to get one of the largest ones I could find so I could fill it up and make a huge delicious meal to enjoy with friends. In fact, I think they’re so fabulous that they shouldn’t just be used for comfort food or soup in the Winter… they can still work magic in the kitchen in the Spring! Here’s a round-up Spring crockpot recipes to enjoy this year:

1. Crock Pot Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers topped off with Monterey Jack Cheese.

2. This Cauliflower and Broccoli in Swiss Cheese Sauce recipe is a great side for any spring meal! Tillamook Swiss Cheese adds a sweet nutty flavor to these vegetables!

3. Lasagna in a slow cooker?! That’s right, start up the crockpot with this Vegetarian Lasagna featuring Tillamook Shredded Mozzarella and you’ll have a yummy Spring dinner with little effort.

4. I don’t know about you, but tacos are a spring stable in my house. With this Chicken Tacos recipe you’ll be able to make simple, delicious tacos and top them off with Tillamook Cheese and Sour Cream!

5. You might not think spring when you first look at this Spinach Artichoke Dip recipe, but if you had the foresight to start your spring garden and plant some spinach then all you have to do is skip to the garden, harvest your spinach, throw in the artichoke hearts, cheese, and sour cream, and you’ll have the freshest spinach artichoke dip anyone has ever tasted.

What other recipes will you be cooking up in your crockpot this Spring?

By Laura

Bacon, there’s no denying it’s delicious on just about everything (especially things involving cheese!)  So, after a little research, I decided to take on the challenge of making my own.

I found this great video tutorial, which I used to guide me through the process.

Here’s a summary of the steps involved and some snapshots from my process:

1. Pick up a pork belly from your local butcher. Ask them to leave the skin on the pork belly. This helps develop the flavor, and you can cut it off after it’s smoked.

2. Cut the pork belly into manageable chunks so each chunk can fit in its own big Ziploc bag. Add the spices and sugar/salt rub to the pork belly and then put the pork into the Ziploc bags. Set the bags in a cool area. (I used my garage in the winter. This is ideal because the temperature doesn’t change too much.) If you have an outside fridge that isn’t opened that often that would work, too.

3. Mid-week, move the bag around to make sure the sauce has been created (the salt extracting liquid from the pork belly mixing with the spices) and is fully covering the pork-belly. 

4. Take the pork belly out of the bags, rinse off, and allow it to dry for 24 hours. You can let it sit on an oven rack (but make sure no one turns on the oven!) The above photo is what it looks like after drying for 24 hours.

5. Smoke the pork belly in a smoker according to the directions, but make adjustments based on the size of pork belly you buy.

6. Cut off the skin once the pork belly has cooled.

7. Use a slicer to slice up the bacon.

Would you take on this challenge at home? It was a lot of work, but absolutely delicious!

By Mary

Get your grilled cheese on with Tillamook all month long on Pinterest! What better way to celebrate these delicious 30 days than with recipes, tips, and all things grilled cheesy!? Each day, a new pin on our “Grilled Cheese (Smorgas)Board” Pinterest board will be revealed for our fans! Tune in for chances to repin and win!
Follow along here!

To enter sweepstakes:
1) Follow Tillamook on Pinterest
2) Repin any “Win This” pin for a chance to win that item!
3) All winners will be announced at the end of the month on their re-pinned pin, and the original Tillamook pin
Official contest rules

By Loafy

Big family feasts and holiday meals are the best! That’s when all the best tasting food comes to the table (and the best leftovers)! However, after a few days, I tend to get a little bored of eating the same leftovers. So, instead of eating the same meal over and over again, I like to bake the leftovers into some puff pastry (or pie crust, whatever you have) and eat it as a hand pie.

Hand pies are exactly what they sound like, pies that you can hold in your hand and eat! There are some traditional hand pie recipes, but they can really be any combination of flavors or leftover that you have.

I always have leftover scallop potatoes and ham from Easter dinner, and they seemed like a perfect hand pie filling. I tucked my leftovers into some store bought puff pastry (found in the freezer section) with some Tillamook Swiss Cheese. Make sure your scallop potatoes (or whatever leftovers you are using) are cold when you load them into your shell, that way they aren’t too gooey when you seal the hand pie.

Layer your leftovers in the middle of your pastry dough (make sure to leave enough room around the edges to seal the hand pie). Brush the edges with an egg wash (mix together an egg yolk and a little water) and then seal the pie by pressing the two sides together; mark the edges with a fork.  Poke a few holes in the top to keep the pies from bursting while cooking and then brush the top with egg wash. Throw them in a 400 degree oven until they are gold brown (about 15-20 minutes).

We always seem to have a colony of chocolate bunnies around the house after Easter, so I cracked off a few pieces of chocolate and baked them into a cherry hand pie.

You will want to let them cool a little, but they are definitely best served warm out of the oven!

The options are truly endless; ham, swiss, and honey mustard or how about roast beef, horseradish cream, and provolone. What leftovers would you make a hand pie with?

By Candace

To celebrate National Something on a Stick Day (yes, there really is a holiday for it), we’re sharing our favorite tasty snacks on sticks!

Fig Vanilla & Sour Cream Popsicles
These sweet and tart Sour Cream Popsicles are the perfect treat to kick-start Spring. The trickiest part is waiting patiently while they freeze!

Photo courtesy of BayAreaBites.com

Cheese Dipped Apples
Cheese, fruit, and chocolate are some of our favorite things to eat, and with this recipe you can have them all in one with help from a handy stick!

Sweet & Savory Kabobs
If you’re looking for a fun way to serve sandwiches, these creative, colorful kabobs make a great after school snack.

Photo courtesy of GlitterGuide.com

Cheesy Chocolate Fondue
Treat you taste buds to a cheesy, chocolaty fondue.

Cheese Sticks
All out of sticks? Make your own for a yummy late night snack!

Photo courtesy of SmittenKitchen.com

By Callie

If you have ever had passion for something, you’ll know why the newest Tillamook Kitchen chefs create some of the best food in Portland. They are passionate! About what they do. About where they’re from. About where they are. About eating local. And about good food. That’s a whole lotta passion and when you take it all and put it in one unbelievably good biscuit, or piece of fried chicken or bowl of grits…sit down. It’s that good!

If you live in Portland, I’m sure you’ve heard of them – you may have even been there. If you’re from out of town, you might have heard of them from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives where they wowed Guy Fieri with their southern cookin’ done right in Portland, OR. Now you can learn about the guys that make it all possible and how their food is just so dang good (hint: it has something to do with passion.). Pine State Biscuits is joining the fold of great chefs on the Tillamook Kitchen. Show them a warm Tillamook welcome and eat some biscuits…and fried chicken…and grits…and honey…and fried okra…you hungry yet?

By Matt