These are phenomenal and SO easy! Brian and I used to go to a pizza place in Cedar City, UT that made some similar to these. We went home and tried a few things before we found the
winning combination...
You'll Need
Fresh Jalapenos
(each jalapeno makes 2 poppers, so however many you think you'll need)
Block Cream Cheese, (1 block to every 15 or so jalapenos)
Thin Sliced Bacon, (1 strip per popper)
Wooden Toothpicks to hold bacon in place
Apricot Preserves and Blue Cheese Dressing for dipping!
The Process
Start by washing and halving your jalapenos the long way, (being careful to take as little meat from the jalapeno as possible) cut the stem off too. Scrap out seeds inside jalapeno- these are kickin', but if you want even more spice you can leave a couple seeds in there. I completely seed mine and rinse for good measure. Set jalapeno halves aside.
Soften cream cheese to make it easy to spread, and a small amount of salt into your cream cheese if your a salt lover (which I am). Remember the bacon will add a bit of salt also. Using a knife, or I prefer the back of a spoon, fill the halves with cream cheese- don't worry about getting them perfectly level.
Wrap an entire slice of bacon around each popper. It's going to seem like too much bacon, but the bacon shrinks down a lot when it's cooked. Use a wooden toothpick to secure the ends, (you can also just carefully tuck both ends under in a jam but that way gets a bit sloppy when your plating and eating them).
You can either grill the poppers or bake them on a metal cooling rack set on to of a cookie sheet. It takes about 15 minutes, but this is one you have to keep your eyes because it's different every time. When the jalapeno has softened considerably and the bacon is no longer raw looking it's done (the bacon won't get crispy, but it will darken).
I prefer the apricot preserves for dip (salty+spicy+sweet=YUM)
but my husband prefers a thick blue cheese dressing for his which is also fantastic.
(I have a GREAT blue cheese dressing recipe that we use for this let me know if you want it)
Other than that, ENJOY and try not to eat every last one yourself!
Emily Waltz
