Smoked Jalapeño Poppers Latest Notes

Smoked Jalapeño Poppers

  • September 18, 2021

A few weeks ago my wife and I were invited over to our friends’ place for dinner. We were asked to bring a side so we thought a bit and that’s when my wife suggested smoking some jalapeno poppers. It didn’t take me half a second to agree! But I didn’t want to get premade poppers and smoke them, I wanted the challenge of making them on my own so I set out one Saturday afternoon on a mission!

Upon suggestions from my wife (who is an amazing cook herself!) I decided that I would cook up some pork sausage and mix it with the cream cheese. Not content with just doing that, I added some seasonings to the cream cheese consisting of my pork shoulder rub, onion powder, and garlic powder and mixed it all up.

You can’t have a jalapeño popper without bacon! My wife suggested that I pre-cook the bacon a bit until it was flimsy, which I did, with the thought that it would help the bacon get crispy when being smoked. That turned out to be a great idea, but more on that in a bit.

I then cleaned up some fresh jalapeno peppers, cleaned out the seeds, and gave them a good rinse in cold water. I was worried that it would take a considerable amount of time for this process but using a spoon to clean out the insides of the peppers made life a lot easier!

What did take a quite a bit of time, however, was assembling the peppers, bacon, and cream cheese! I decided to leave the peppers cut in half and add a spoonful of cream cheese mix and then wrap them in bacon. Looking back, I should have cooked more bacon because well, you can never have enough bacon! I placed the poppers in a disposable pan which would go on the smoker.

Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate using the smoker but I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get the bacon to the desired crispness that I was wanting so I decided to use my grill for the process. I turned the grill up to high until until it was up to 600 degrees. While I waited, I made a pocket out of aluminum foil and placed a couple of handfuls of cherrywood pellets in it. I then put the pocket of pellets directly on one of the burners and turned the other 3 off. I placed the pan of poppers in the grill for 15 minutes. The pocket of pellets was producing the perfect amount of smoke, but when I checked on the poppers I could tell the bacon wasn’t going to get crisp. I decided to turn on the other 3 burners again at a medium flame and let them cook for another 10 minutes. Finally, I turned all 4 burners to high for the final 5 minutes which resulted in the bacon getting crisp without the cream cheese melting and running out of the jalapenos.

We arrived at our friends’ place for dinner and they were an immediate hit! I, personally, think they’re the best poppers I have ever had, and my wife agreed! Our friends were impressed and asked “is that sausage in the cream cheese? That’s unexpected but awesome! This is a keeper! You’re going to have to bring these over all the time!” When people love my cooking and ask for the recipe I know that I did it right, and that is why I love cooking!

Beef

Beer Can Bacon Burgers

  • May 6, 2020

Beer can. Bacon. Burgers. Let those words sink in a second and what thoughts come to mind? The most obvious thoughts, bacon and burgers, but where does the beer can fit in to this equation? That’s exactly what I thought when my wife mentioned it to me after coming home from work another great grilling idea. I asked her to contact the gentleman that made them and told her about them for instructions. He was happy to oblige, but over text messaging I had a hard time grasping the concept. I decided to give it a try!

Fresh off the grill and straight to the table! I hope they taste as good as they look!

Using the can! Forming the burger around the beer can takes a little bit of work, but it's worth it.

Creating these isn’t difficult at all. First, take your ground beef (I suggest 80/20 to retain the moisture) and season it as if you were going to make cheeseburgers on the grill. Make a meatball between ½ and ¾ pounds. Next, take the beer can (use an opened beer for sturdiness) and begin to form the burger around the bottom of the can. I found it easier to turn the can over and form it.

Turn the can back over where the mean is now on your counter and press the can down while holding on to the meat. Press all the way until the can feels like it is hitting the counter and continue to work the burger up the side of the can. I kept the walls of the burger about ¼ of an inch thick, maybe slightly less.

Forming the burger around the beer can and wrapping it with bacon.

Next, I took two strips of bacon and wrapped them around the burger. The first strip on the bottom flush with the counter, the second above the first. Once the bacon is secured (don’t worry, it adheres to the burger really well) I used a paper towel to grip the can and carefully slid it out of the burger. The result was a pocket beautifully wrapped with bacon. This thing wasn’t even filled with anything yet but the idea was making my mouth water!

Here is where the creativity comes in! You can fill the pocket with just about anything you want!! Think of whatever toppings you like on a burger and put them in the pocket! This is a stroke of genius!! For me and my wife’s burgers I added a couple of chunks of Velveeta cheese to the bottom of the pocket, then a couple of sliced jalapenos, a handful of caramelized onions and mushrooms, and topped it with a few pieces of colby-jack jalapeno cheese. For my son’s burger, I added a couple of piece of bacon to the bottom of the pocket, followed by chunks of Velveeta, topped with bacon bits, and topped with colby-jack jalapeno cheese.

I set up my Weber E410 gas grill for indirect cooking, and placed the burgers on for an hour and 15 minutes. I cooked them a little too much at that temp for that long as they turned out a little dry, so the next batch will only get an hour and slightly lower temps. The results, even for being a tad bit dry, where AMAZING!!!!

I let them rest for about 5 minutes and then we dove in!! After the first bite I had to ask myself “where has this thing been all my life!!??” They were that good!! With all of the possibilities that can be added to the pocket, I will definitely make these again and again!! They are a great addition to the household menu!