ABT Recipe (BACON!)

[itsme_timd]

Oh man, are these things good.

I found these mentioned by a few others here and tweaked the recipe a bit. They have a silly name - Atomic Buffalo Turds, guess that's why they get called ABT's!

INGREDIENTS
10-12 Jalapeños
1 lb of bacon
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup cheddar cheese
3 fresh chorizo links
Barbecue dry rub
Garlic powder to taste (I would have used fresh but I didn't have any)
Onion powder to taste

This was a great use for some of my homegrown jalapeños! I didn't have enough on my plant so I had to get some from the store, mine look much better than the ones I got at the store... but I digress.







PREPARATION
This part is pretty easy, nothing too crazy here.
- Skin the chorizo and brown it
- Sliced the jalapeños lengthwise and remove the seeds and veins
- Spread the bacon out and sprinkle it with the dry rub.
- Get your grill or smoker heated up to about 250F.
- Once the chorizo is browned, drain it to remove excess fat. If you don't have the time to let this cool to room temperature then rinse it with cold water.
- Mix the chorizo, cream and cheddar cheeses, garlic salt and onion powder together. If you like you can add some of the dry rub here as well.
--- The cream cheese acts mostly as a binder here, the bulk of the mixture should be chorizo and cheddar.

ABT ASSEMBLY
- Take a jalapeño half and a load it with a heaping teaspoon of the mixture. The size should be about the same as if the pepper wasn't cut in half.
- Wrap that sucker in a piece of bacon. Some recipes use a half a piece per ABT.
- Repeat until you're out of cheese mixture, bacon, or jalapeños.
*NOTE* I ran out of bacon first and had some of the cheese mixture left. This will makes a killer cheese spread for crackers! You could dice some of the jalapeño and mix that in as well. Nom.
- Some of the rub may come off of the bacon, once these are all assembled you may want to dust them up again.



COOK 'EM!
- Place these over indirect heat if you are using a grill!
- In my gas grill I turn on one side of the burners and I had an aluminum pan with mesquite chunks over the flame.
- Close it down and smoke these for about 2 hours.
- WARNING! Do not take a knife and fork to the smoker and eat these off the smoker like that's your plate. That's rude. You will want to... but try to restrain yourself.



SOME VARIATIONS
- Eliminate the chorizo and use another cup of cheddar cheese then place 1 little smokie link inside the jalapeño before covering with cheese.
- I saw a lot of recipes that put a bit of honey in the cheese mixture.. whatever floats your boat.
- Mince fresh garlic and onion and use those in place of the powders.
- Use poblano peppers.
- If you have leftovers and you refrigerate them you could probably slice them up and make an omelet for breakfast the next day. At least I think you could - not that I made an ABT omelet. But if I did I bet it would be delicious, especially with some whole wheat toast.

Enjoy!