ABTs for Thanksgiving

I've been wanting to make these for a while, but being the only one in the house who craves spicy foods they've been relegated to the back of my mind till now.  Finally an opportunity presented itself, so I cooked these bad boys up and took them along as an appy for Thanksgiving dinner.

As it turns out my fears of setting my wife on fire from jalapeno heat were unfounded.  She was one of their biggest fans.  By removing the seeds and veins you really cut down the amount of heat in the pepper, and a lot more is cooked away from being in the grill for 2 hours.

Essentially a Jalapeno Popper, Atomic Buffalo Turds are a common fixture in many BBQ joints, many with their own variation.  I used this recipe because it's relatively easy and lends itself to much variation in future attempts

This is the entire list of ingredients.

Like making a cabbage roll.  Only not.

Ready to settle in for a good smoke.

Ready to enjoy

Enjoyed.

Atomic Buffalo Turds

You will need:

• Ground Italian Sausage
• Bacon
• Cream Cheese
• Jalapeno Peppers (2-3 inches in length)
• rubber/latex gloves (for handling the peppers)

You will make:

There's no amounts listed for any of the ingredients, because honestly this recipe is totally subjective in the quantities needed.

Pull the cream cheese out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.

If cooking in your grill - set it up for indirect cooking, get the temp to around 235-250*.  Cooking in the oven, set it for 235*

Brown the Italian sausage, set aside to let cool.

Get your gloves on (or not if you're a toughguy), and start splitting your jalapenos.  You want to cut them along the length into little boats, leaving the stem intact.

Scoop out the seeds.  If you want a milder pepper, scoop out the veins as well. Much of the heat that lives in a jalapeno comes from the seeds and the veins, not the flesh itself.

Season the insides of the pepper lightly with salt and pepper, or your favorite bbq rub.

Your cream cheese should be soft and your sausage should have cooled enough. Combine both in a mixing bowl until smooth.  Add cream cheese or sausage as desired to get a consistency you like.

Stuff each jalapeno with the mixture, letting it round up over the pepper a bit (it won't melt or leak out much)

Stretch each bacon slice to maximum length.  Decision time - how much do you like bacon?  You can split each slice in half, or just wrap each pepper with one full slice of bacon.  In the photos above I used a half a slice per pepper, but once they shrunk down on the grill it didn't wrap up as neatly as I would have liked, so I think my next attempt will be with full slices of bacon.

Wrap each pepper with your bacon, trying to start and end on the bottom.  This will keep your pepper from unraveling in the oven without needing toothpicks to hold it all in place.

Place your ABTs on a rack in your grill, above a drip pan.

Smoke or bake for around 2 hours, until the bacon is dark and on the edge of crispy.

Enjoy!!