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

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

We all know that waffles are delicious, but did you also know that they make a wonderful vessel for sandwiches? That’s right, waffle sandwiches (a.k.a. Dutch Tacos)! We know our cheese, but we needed a little help with the waffle side of things so we visited the Portland food cart Flavourspot to find the best way to celebrate….With waffles and cheese of course!

Waffle 1:
Muenster Cheese, smothered in brown sugar, with green apple, and bacon. It’s a riff off the classic baked brie! And it’s very, very tasty.

Waffle 2:
Smoked Medium Cheddar Cheese, veggie sausage, and maple syrup. Need we say more?

Waffle 3:
Turkey, Jalapenos, Smoked Black Pepper White Cheddar Cheese, and America’s Best Colby Jack Cheese, all wrapped up in a waffle. Doesn’t get much better than this!

If you don’t have a waffle maker at home, fear not! The frozen waffles you can buy in the grocery store also work just fine. Or, if you’re in the Portland area, Flavourspot is the perfect place to indulge. Happy International Waffle Day!

Stay connected with Flavourspot on:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

By Laura

I’ve seen some images floating around online of sushi rolls made with mac and cheese. Could it be that a marriage between sushi and mac and cheese, two of my favorite foods, really exists? There was only one way to find out if this urban legend was as scrumptious as it looked.

My experiment began with creating three different flavors of mac and cheese. The first was your standard fare, not too gooey, but certainly cheese laden. The second, I made extra cheesy. Something inside me said, the more cheese I added, the closer to sticky rice the consistency would get. The third was all about flavor. I used Tillamook Garlic White Cheddar to kick it up a notch. Once my mac and cheese was prepped, I let it cool in the fridge for an hour. You know how when you refrigerate leftover mac and cheese, it firms up? Well that’s exactly what I was going for!

An hour later, I removed it from the fridge and started making my rolls…easier said than done. I covered my sushi rolling mat in plastic wrap and sprinkled breadcrumbs over one third of the mat. Then, I scooped the mac and cheese onto the breadcrumbs and spread it out into a long rectangle, trying to make sure there were no gaps. I tried placing a few different things inside the rolls: pesto sauce, parmesan, more breadcrumbs, and thin strips of cheese. Rolling the rolls proved pretty difficult, especially with the plastic wrap. I ended up trying aluminum foil as well, which held its shape much better. The mac and cheese oozed out the ends of my rolling mat on my first few tries. Once I had the rolls complete and wrapped, I placed them in the fresezer for another hour.

I took the rolls out, unwrapped them, and sliced them into sushi pieces using a sharp knife. I let the rolls sit out and warm to room temperature before eating (I highly recommend this, they’ll hold their shape and taste much better). I sprinkled some cayenne pepper on top of a few of the rolls for good measure, and dipped the sushi pieces in pesto sauce, Tabasco sauce, and Secret Aardvark Habanero sauce.

As far as execution, the rolls with strips of cheese in the center held up the best. The pesto sauce leaked through the center of the roll, but still tasted great. I really recommend trying this experiment with the flavored cheddars. The Garlic White Cheddar rolls were my favorite!

Would you try this cheestastic sushi experiment!?

By Amalya

This Test Kitchen post comes from Krista Harper, a freelance writer and news radio show director who lives on the chilly Canadian shores of Lake Superior. Krista has become a rabid consumer of tea in the last several years (it is her belief that living in a cold climate will quickly drive anyone to drink more than their fair share of hot beverages). Working part-time at her local David’s Tea has done nothing to slow her growing thirst. Krista also admits to having spent up to a third of her otherwise modest grocery budget on cheese – so it only seems natural for her to experiment with pairing two of her favorite things!

I conducted this taste-test with the following teas:
-White
-Green (pan-fired, Chinese-style)
-Earl Grey
-Yerba Maté (a caffeinated herb from South America)
-Sleigh Ride (a tart, fruity, hibiscus-based herbal tea made by David’s Tea)

With tea steeped and seven different cheeses at hand, I was ready to try some pairings. Which teas complemented (or clashed!) with each type of cheese? Read on…

Provolone
The most delicate of the cheeses in the experiment, provolone has a creamy texture and a slightly tangy finish. I thought it would make a perfect fit with the light, refreshing taste of white tea. Nope. Even provolone cheese overpowered the gentle flavor of the white tea. However, the medium-bodied, earthy, almost hay-like flavor of the South American favorite yerba maté, was a slam dunk when paired with provolone. I would suggest pairing provolone with other medium-bodied teas such as oolong, Darjeeling black tea or rooibos.

Colby Jack
This mild, buttery cheese was hard to match. White tea seemed to be the natural choice, but as I found with provolone, it didn’t work out the way I had thought. I found this cheese went much better with green tea. A nice, smooth oolong might also suit it.

Sharp Cheddar
Full-bodied with a nice zing, this aged cheese paired best with green tea, which had just enough lively earthiness to balance it out. It also paired well with yerba maté. For a unique experience, I’d suggest trying this cheese with lapsang souchong (a very smoky black tea, which is dried over a fire) or a milder cup of Russian caravan tea (which is a blend of lapsang souchong, oolong, and black Keemun tea).

Special Reserve Extra Sharp Cheddar
This creamy cheddar’s strong flavor called for something either really earthy or strong. Nothing I had prepared worked very well with it. As with sharp cheddar, I’d suggest trying it with a smoky cup of lapsang souchong. Perhaps a good, earthy assam black tea or a pu’erh tea would also balance it out.

Pepper Jack
This cheese threw a bit of a wrench in the tasting. Would the zesty-yet-mild flavor of Pepper Jack go with any tea at all? I love me some Pepper Jack on a sandwich, but with tea? Turns out that yes, it can be paired with tea, but the robust, dark teas were out of the question. This cheese’s kick demands a light, cooling tea. The white tea paired well, and a Japanese green tea or an oolong might also work. Try icing the tea, and it would almost certainly be a match made in heaven.

Vintage White Medium Cheddar
This was my favorite cheese of the bunch. Creamy and smooth, with a distinctive flavor, the Vintage White Medium was also one of the hardest cheeses to pair. Surprisingly, fruity Sleigh Ride, a hibiscus-based tea, made the best match. Hibiscus-based teas are tart and sweet, in the vein of cranberry juice, or red wine… and Vintage White Medium Cheddar pairs well with fruit and wine, so maybe it’s not such a surprise that the pair complemented each other so well. I would recommend trying this one with any fruity teas – I think a peach or lemon-flavored tea might be especially delicious.

Smoked Medium Cheddar
This was my other favorite cheese in the tasting. The smoked hickory flavor of this moist cheddar was hard to pair, however. Since this cheese has so much going on, it’s hard to justify pairing it with anything more complex than a nice delicate white tea. The other teas I had on hand just seemed to distract from the delicious smoky flavor of the cheese. The other teas I might try to pair with this one are a creamy oolong or a Japanese green tea such as gyokuro (Japanese green teas are usually steamed, giving them a fresher, grassier flavor than their pan-fired Chinese counterparts). Or pair lapsang souchong with this cheese if you’re up for a truly smoky experience!

The final verdict
The results of the cheese and tea tasting experiment weren’t what I had anticipated. While I expected the stronger cheese flavors to pair best with stronger-tasting teas, it didn’t always work that way – and the lighter cheeses didn’t pair especially well with the lighter teas, either. I found that all the cheeses paired at least fairly well (or better) with green tea and yerba mate. Earthy flavors and cheese just seem to match well! And, word to the wise, earl grey clashed with everything. Bleh!

If you’d like to try this at home, I’d recommend making sure you have a good blend of light, medium, and full-bodied teas to experiment with, as well as a diverse spread of cheeses. Work from mildest to strongest cheeses, and give your taste buds a break between cheeses with some water.

Would you try this at home? What kinds of cheese would you pair with which tea?

By Tillamook

Inspiration for this Tillamook Test Kitchen came from the turducken. What’s a turducken you ask? Well, it’s essentially a three-bird roast (made of turkey, duck, and chicken) where they are all stuffed together and cooked. It was a daunting thought for us to add cheese to this particular dish, so here’s our cheesy twist with cheese, meat, and veggies.

The first test: Cheesex3

Cheese, on cheese, on cheese. Tasty, but hard to keep together.

Okay, let’s be realistic, you can’t really stuff cheese, in cheese, in cheese and cook it, so instead we decided to layer it, cold. I took half a loaf of Pepper Jack Cheese and layered it with Sharp Cheddar Cheese and Muenster Cheese slices. To be honest, all the cheese tasted wonderful together, but it was pretty hard to keep it together. If you want to showcase some cheeses together, layering slices on a cheese plate will probably work better.

The second test: Cheesy Turbacon

A loaf of cheese, ground turkey, and bacon all wrapped together make one rich meat loaf.

Be warned, there’s a lot of meat in this one. I took a loaf of Medium Cheddar Cheese, layered it with ground turkey, and then added what I like to call a bacon weave around that. It took over an hour to bake, and the result…well, it’s about what you would expect! It was like a mini turkey meat loaf, wrapped in bacon, with cheese inside. Pretty tasty even though the cheese was slightly overcooked. However, I don’t advise you eat too much at once, it’s pretty rich.

Note: if you don’t pack the meat around the loaf tight you might have a cheese leak while baking!

The third test: Cheesy Peptom

A green pepper, stuffed with cheese, stuffed with a tomato, stuffed with more cheese!

This one was pretty simple, a green pepper stuffed with Sharp Cheddar Cheese, stuffed with a tomato, stuffed with more cheese. You throw it in the oven for a while and you have yourself yummy roasted vegetables with a cheesy garnish.

Note: I wanted to put mashed potatoes in between the pepper, tomato, and cheese, but I didn’t leave enough room! If you ever try this yourself it might be a fun addition (and you’ll have to let us know how the test goes!).

The winner for me was the Cheesy Peptom. Simple fresh vegetables with melted cheese on top were a refreshing addition to my dinner. However, depending on your love of meat, you might disagree with me and go for the Cheesy Turbacon.

By Laura

What better way to celebrate the fall season than with apples and cheese!!!

The month of October is a beautiful time. The leaves have begun to turn orange, pumpkins are popping up on front porches, and caramel apples have once again returned. As delicious as the traditional treat of the caramel apple is, as a cheese lover I had to ask, can it be done with cheese!? I grabbed three apples, removed their cores and twisted wooden craft dowels ⅔  of the way into their cores.

Experiment equipment
Three apples
Wooden dowels (found at a craft store)
Cream
Flour
8-ounce-bag of Tillamook Medium Cheddar shreds
Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar
Jar of peanut butter
Bag of dark chocolate chips
Wax paper

Directions
My first attempt was an apple dipped in cheese. I melted down some Tillamook Medium Cheddar cheese shreds in a double boiler. I had trouble getting the cheese to stick to the glossy apple skin, and it didn’t turn out as appetizing as I’d hoped.

I’ve been hearing a lot of fan chatter about cheddar and peanut butter. An unlikely, but, delicious combination. I decided to cover my second apple in peanut butter and roll it in Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese shreds.

The third apple I made was a sweet and salty combination of chocolate and cheese. I shredded some Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar with a fine grater and set it aside in a bowl. I thought the extra sharp flavor would be a good contrast to the sweet chocolate. I melted a bag of dark chocolate chips in a double boiler, continuously stirring, and dunked my last apple on a stick into it. I rolled the bottom of the apple into my shredded Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar and set it on wax paper in the fridge for an hour to set. This was my favorite, a salty and sweet fall treat, and my cheesy alteration to the traditional caramel apple on a stick.

What Tillamook products would you dip your apple on a stick into?

By Amalya

Ready to smoke some cheese!

One of my favorite Tillamook Cheese varieties is the Vintage White Smoked Extra Sharp Cheddar. It is the perfect combination of smokey flavor and creamy, sharp cheddar. So, I thought why not try to smoke my own cheese using appliances I already have? Tillamook uses a cold smoker and unfortunately I don’t have one, so I was forced to use my Traeger smoker. When smoking meat, these are the best smokers available, but we learned they are not quite as good smoking a product that can melt. I went into this experiment hoping that I could get it to work and I’d be able to smoke my own cheese. However, after trying a few combinations of things, it looks like I’ll just have to keep buying my smoked cheese from the experts. Here’s what I did though – try it out and let us know if you come up with any other methods that will work better than mine.

I tried to smoke 4 different flavors – Medium, Special Reserve Extra Sharp, Pepper Jack, and Vintage White Medium. I was wanting to see if the age of the cheese would actually effect the ability of the cheese to be smoked. This was not a scientific experiment, but it appeared that the sharper the cheese, the more it picked up the smokey flavor. Why do you think that is?

I also tried a few sizes – 8oz, 1lb and 2lb. This was to determine if it was possible to infuse flavor into a baby loaf of cheese, or if the cheese needs to be thinner to pick-up the smoke. I punctured the baby loaf in order to allow the smoke to penetrate, but it didn’t flavor as well as the thinner 8oz and 1lb loafs. The benefit of the 2lb loaf though is that it had the fortitude to not melt down as much as a thinner loaf on the hot smoker. To combat the hot smoker, I tried to create a semi-cold smoker by turning the Traeger on and off – trying to keep it as cool and smoke filled as possible. Unfortunately the smoke just didn’t billow until it was hot enough to melt the cheese.

There was definitely some smoke…unfortunately there was also some melt.

Overall, I was able to create a smokey flavor in the cheeses. However, the trade-off was that the texture and shape of the cheese was completely lost. Reheating cheese and then cooling it back down is a bad idea. If you have a cold smoker, this could be done, but I don’t recommend using a hot smoker. At the end of the day, the flavor was obtained, but the texture and consistency of Tillamook smoked cheeses was not. I’ll be buying my smoked cheese from now on!

By Matt

The grass has been mowed, the gloves have been oiled, and the players have been selected. It’s time for this year’s Baseball All Star Game. Not all of us are lucky enough to grab a seat at Kauffman Stadium to watch the powerhouses of baseballduke it out for home field advantage, but we can all bring the baseball experience home. With the TV turned on and the beverages iced down the only thing missing is stadium food, Tillamook style, of course.

My favorite ball park treat is the over-sized pretzel with cheese sauce, something I only get when I’m at a game. I hit the kitchen like a ball player prepping for the World’s Series. Having never made pretzels with cheese sauce before, I knew practice was key.

Making the Pretzel

I made classic pretzel dough using Tillamook Butter and they were utterly delicious. The homemade pretzel total blew any ball park pretzel I’ve ever had out of the park.

With the Pretzels warm out of the oven, my next step was to make cheesy goodness for dipping. I purchased both Special Reserve Extra Sharp Tillamook Cheddar Cheese and Tillamook Pepper Jack Cheese for my trials.

Classic Cheese Sauce

• 2 tablespoons of Tillamook Salted Butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 ½ cups shredded Tillamook Special Reserve Extra Sharp Cheddar
• 1 teaspoon mustard

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add the flour and salt, stirring until the mixture begins to simmer. Add the milk and continue to stir the mixture until thickened. Add cheese and mustard. Stir mixture until the cheese melts. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

Pepper Jack Cheese Sauce

The sauce was tasty but needed a little more punch. An extra teaspoon of mustard or using Garlic Chili Pepper Cheddar Cheese may have done the trick. With my all-star sauce yet to be discovered, I moved on to the Pepper Jack Cheese.

• 2 tablespoons of Tillamook Salted Butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 ½ cups shredded Tillamook Pepper Jack

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add the flour and salt, stirring until the mixture begins to simmer. Add the milk and continue to stir the mixture until thickened. Add cheese. Stir mixture until the cheese melts. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

I wanted to let the Pepper Jack shine so I kept the cheese sauce simple with no extra add-ins. The Pepper Jack made the sauce extra creamy allowing even more sauce to be scooped with each dip.

Seeing as how this experiment was in honor of baseball, I thought three attempts was only fitting. For my last sauce I swung for the fences with a cinnamon apple cheddar dip.

Cinnamon Apple Cheddar Sauce

• 2 tablespoons of Tillamook Salted Butter
• 1 Granny Smith apple
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 ½ cups shredded Tillamook Special Reserve Extra Sharp Cheddar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add diced apple. Saute until the apples are soft and can be easily mashed with a spoon. Add the flour and salt, stirring until the mixture begins to simmer. Add the milk and continue to stir the mixture until thickened. Add cheese, sugar and cinnamon. Stir mixture until the cheese melts. Serve immediately.

The sauce had hardly cooled to edible temperatures before my pretzel dove in. This final sauce was by far my favorite, but the Pepper Jack won out with all my baseballfan friends. With my pretzel and cheese sauce perfected, I’m ready to watch this years game from my own couch. Considering all the yummy Tillamook Cheese sauce, I dare say, I may have the best seat for game.

What other yummy foods make you think of baseball parks?

By Kelly

Popcorn is one of those foods that will forever be a staple in my life. It used to be my go-to after school snack and it continues to be something that I nibble on. We recently learned that some of our fans love popcorn as well, but they like to add Tillamook Cheese! Why we didn’t think of this first is beyond me, but we decided to put the idea to the test and find the best way to make cheesy popcorn!

The test: Is it better to make a roux (and add cheese to it!) or just sprinkle cheese on some popcorn and broil until the cheese is melted? This is what I learned:

• If you don’t have a good roux recipe, find one! My first attempt at a roux (without paying close attention to measurements) and adding cheese ended up in a big blob mess! Having the right measurements so the cheese melts properly is important!

• My second attempt (pictured above) was much better! However, don’t go light on the cheese… keep adding it until you get your desired taste.

• This method is super simple… pop the popcorn, add to a baking sheet, sprinkle with cheese, and bake until cheese is melted. It’s done within minutes, and tasty!

Both methods worked, but the second method of sprinkling grated cheese over popcorn and broiling until the cheese melted was my favorite. The popcorn didn’t get soggy like it did with the roux mixture, and there was a stronger cheese flavor!

The next test around cheesy popcorn might have to be what type of cheese to use… any suggestions?

By Laura