Three bacon recipes!
We recently attended a backyard party to celebrate our Canada Day long weekend. We all brought some delicious nibblies to eat to keep us satiated while we played washers and had a couple of beers. We had a perfect day – beautiful weather, great company, lots of laughs, and fireworks to cap it all off.
Big thanks to our friend Jeff for hosting. We had a blast.
What better time to make some of my favourite bacon recipes?
Of course I’m going to share them with you. Only one at a time though. I’m going to post all three recipes this week, one today, one on Wednesday, and one on Friday.
Up first, bacon-wrapped bbq jalapeno poppers.
Bacon-Wrapped BBQ Jalapeno Poppers
16 medium sized jalapeno peppers
1 lb bacon, sliced in half crosswise
1 1/2 C cream cheese (use flavoured if you’d like)
1 1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp liquid smoke (optional)
1/2 C barbecue sauce (optional, but really tasty)
Preheat oven to 450F. You may also opt to cook these right on a hot grill.
Soak about 40 toothpicks in water. This will ensure they don’t burn up when you cook the poppers. If you’re making the devils on horseback recipe, soak double that amount.
Par-cook the bacon. I cook it over medium low heat for a couple of minutes per side. I then let it drain on a plate lined with paper towels, just for good measure.
Let’s prep the pep. I know, I’m such a corn dog sometimes.
Cut the peppers in half lengthwise. I like to keep a bit of the stem on them. It makes them a bit easier to pick up. Scoop out the insides. A spoon helps.
It’s like a pepper massacre!
Once the peppers are ready to go, I like to bake them just a few minutes (say, 5 minutes) to soften them a bit before stuffing them with the cheese mixture.
Let’s get the stuffing ready, shall we?
Combine cream cheese (I used a combination of roasted garlic and onion and chive cream cheese), shredded cheddar, and liquid smoke (smoked paprika would be good here too) in a bowl and mix well.
Done.
Put the cheese filling into a large ziploc bag. Snip off the corner of the bag. Start stuffing.
Wrap each popper with a slice of the cooked bacon, securing with a wet toothpick.
Bake for 10 minutes.
Brush each popper with barbecue sauce. Bake 5 more minutes.
Check those gorgeous beauties out!
Just a side note, if you’re hoping to take many of these to a party, you might want to make them right before you leave. If my husband had had his way, none of them were leaving the house.
On to the next bacon-wrapped morsel!
See you Wednesday for Devils on Horseback.
