Jalapeno Poppers. . . with BACON!

Everything's better with bacon, am I right? And if cream cheese stuffed into a jalapeno then grilled OR dredged through batter and fried is good - then can you imagine the heaven if that same stuffed pepper was wrapped in bacon??

Oh yeah!

Jalapeno-Bacon Poppers

Jalapenos - allow 2-4 peppers per person
Cream cheese or neufschatel cheese, softened - 1-2 ounces per pepper
Bacon - one slice for every stuffed pepper

So, first things first - preparing those peppers.

You'll want to remove all of the seeds as well as create a 'cavity' that can be filled with cheese.  Not so hard - watch this:

With the pepper on a cutting board, carefully cut in half lengthwise, be sure to NOT cut through the stem area

Finish the cut with pepper in hand - still leaving the stem area INTACT

Now, you should be able to open the pepper to resemble a jaw and, using a potato peeler, scoop out the seeds

Discard the seeds

And you'll have the perfect shell to stuff with cream cheese

Ready to stuff?  Here we go!

Hold the pepper with one hand, slightly 'popping' the 'jaw' open of the pepper; with a butter knife in the other hand, cut off a 'slice' of cheese and slide knife lengthwise into pepper

Close the 'jaw' and scrape the cheese off of the knife into one side of the jalapeno

Repeat for other side of the hollowed out pepper

Ta da!

Let's wrap this up!

Lay one slice of bacon on your work area

and place the stuffed jalapeno crosswise on it

And roll it on up

Securing the ends with a toothpick

They're ready for cooking!

On a medium high grill,

cook until bacon is crispy

These babies will be HOT - so be sure to allow some cooling time before devouring. . . it's the hardest part of making these - I guarantee it.

Thanks to Hubster for prepping the peppers, and J-boy for grilling them, we had a great side to our meal that night!  I apologize for some of the funky camera angles and blurry shots. . . When Hubster's as excited as he was to get these bacon-wrapped poppers a cookin', it's hard for my camera to keep up:-)

Have a Bacon-wrapped kind of day ~

Robin Z