Grilled Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers with Cave Tools

Now that summer is here, we've been enjoying regular meals cooked outside.  My husband loves to get out on a hot day and sit next to the grill to cook - so with Father's Day just around the corner, this is a perfect time to check out Cave Tools and all the different barbecuing tools that they offer!

Just because he is King of the Grill, doesn't mean he should have to cook his own special meal on Father's Day, so I was happy to be asked to review Cave Tools and learn a new technique myself.

I was given the chance to pick a product to review, and since I'd never attempted to make Jalapeno Poppers, I figured why not try the Jalapeno Grill Rack and Pepper Corer tool set.

I did some research on how to make the perfect popper, and then decided to try and improvise a special recipe myself.

The types of popper that most caught my eye are filled with cream cheese, sausage, chopped up peppers, etc and then it is wrapped in bacon.. yum!

I made mine with cream cheese, cheddar and garlic salt (which I use on everything!). I wrapped half the poppers in bacon and left half plain.

Can I just say YUM!!! I've never even had a popper before and I didn't know what I was missing out on my whole life.

So as far as the Grill rack goes, it is a pretty neat concept if you like to grill peppers often. It is a stainless steel rack that fits up to 24 peppers on it. It is equipped with fold able legs so that it doesn't burn the peppers while on the grill.

For me, honestly, it is something that I will use once in a great while and then it will sit under my cupboard for months, as happens with most specialty tools.

When I first pulled the grill pan out, it had no instructions as to how to use it, what size peppers to use, clean up instructions, etc. That was a little frustrating as I had gone to the store and purchased a few sizes of peppers to try out.

I bought 6-8 peppers and was really only able to use 4 due to the hole size and them not fitting (and that was prior to bacon being wrapped). Pretty irritating. It would be nice if there were a few bigger or smaller holes to accommodate the  different size peppers of the world.

I mean really, when are you going to find a tray full of peppers that are all the exact same size? I suggest anyone wanting to fill a tray full might want to actually take it with them to the grocer's to make sure you're selecting the right size.

So past that stumble, when preparing the jalapeno peppers, you are given a pepper corer which is pretty cool! It works great for getting all the seeds and guts out of the pepper. It is a spiral serrated blade and once the top of cut off the pepper, you simply stick the blade in and twist. It literally scoops everything into the spiral and then you pull out a clean pepper.

I really liked this portion of the set and will definitely use it often as we eat a lot of peppers in my household.

The box and website all boast that the product comes with a cookbook full of 25 professional recipes that offer step by step instructions. Great, right? Well, be aware that it is an online book that you have to download. Strike one for me, as most of my Internet use is used on my phone.

Then the book itself is nice, but does not include even one recipe for the Jalapeno Poppers or anything that has to do with that product itself.

It is a generic BBQ cookbook (sauces, ribs, chicken, etc) that is used for all the other products that this company sells.

I was looking forward to seeing different types of recipes for me to try and was disappointed when I had to research recipes myself.

Overall the product is a neat one for those that like to roast peppers on the BBQ or in the oven. It says the product can be used to cook chicken drumsticks on it as well which would probably be what I used it for going forward, as those are all a general size.

They sell the Jalapeno Grill pan plus the Pepper Corer for $14.99 which is quite inexpensive, and you can get the pepper corer by itself for $5.99. They sell items for all your BBQ needs from meat pullers, wire brushes, BBQ tools, and so on.

Cave Tools is offering our readers a 15% discount on the Jalapeno Grill and Pepper Corer set if you purchase from their website.  Use the code ROASTPEPPER15 at check out!

 
The set can also be purchased on Amazon, along with several of their other grilling tools.

Cave Tools is definitely a good source for Fathers day gifts,  so go hop on their website and check out the other products that they sell. Sure to make the grilling fathers in your life very happy!

Like I said earlier, discovering Jalepeno Poppers made me happy, and here's the recipe I came up with:

Grilled Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers
(I am doing this recipe based on a 6 pepper grill but can be substituted to add more up to 24. We actually did a couple wrapped, and a couple without bacon)


6 jalapeno peppers
8 ounces of plain cream cheese (softened)
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar and jack cheese
Garlic Salt (just a pinch) or garlic powder
Applewood Smoked Bacon - 6 uncooked slices

Using the Pepper Corer, remove all of the seeds and guts inside the peppers, set aside.

Mix the Softened cream cheese with the shredded cheddar and jack and garlic salt.

Take a small spoon and fill the peppers with the cream cheese full until the last inch is left of the pepper exposed. The reason you want to do this is because when the cheese gets hot, it will boil over and then gets all burned onto the tray.

Take a slice of bacon and, starting at the bottom, wrap up the pepper until the very top. Whatever is left over, push it onto the open part of the pepper.

Gently stick the poppers into the rack and move them to your grill. Cook until the bacon is crisp.

They will come out crunchy from the bacon, creamy from the cheese and a soft pepper! I hope you enjoy these as much as we did! Try making them for Fathers Day this year!

I'm sharing these Jalapeno Poppers with this month's Improv Cooking Challenge - check out the other chiles and cheese combinations bloggers are whipping up!

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