[Ed-Seth: We have the great pleasure of employing the services and serving utensils of the original barbecuing bloggerati Joe Pichey of GoBlueBBQ to write recipes for our most delicious sponsor, Stubb's BBQ sauce. It's kind of like that sweet brown ketchup everyone in this state usually buys, but with actual flavor. Also you can cook with it. For example…]

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FINALLY!!!!  The wait is over. We've made it to week one and the the biggest question of the offseason is about to be answered.  Everybody has been talking about it and nobody knew the answer to the most asked question around Ann Arbor. No, I’m not talking about the starting QB for week 1. I’m talking about the first tailgate appetizer of the 2016 season.  If you had Armadillo Eggs in the nonexistent, totally fictional office pool, congratulations. These are cream cheese stuffed jalapeños wrapped in breakfast sausage, rolled in crushed pork rinds and slow smoked for about an hour.  Yes, you read that right. This is as close to tailgate perfection as you can get.  Add a few frothy beverages and I am in heaven.

INGREDIENTS:

• Pork Sausage (I Like the Spicy)
• Cream Cheese (Jalapeño or pineapple flavor)
• Jalapeños (Halved and cored)
• Pork Rinds (Crushed)
• Stubb's Pork Rub

[After the JUMP: dippers at the ready]

DIRECTIONS:

Fire your grill or smoker up to about 250 - 275 degrees.  Toss on a few chunks of apple or pecan wood and get the smoke rollin.  This can also be done on your gas grill. Just set up for indirect heat and add some wood chips to a foil pouch and you are good to go.  While the pit is heating up, cut your jalapeños in half and remove the seeds.  If you like your jalapeños hot, leave the white pith or ribs in.  This is where the heat comes from. As you can see from the pic below, I left some of the white pith in.  I prefer mine hot.

Once your jalapeños are ready, start filling with your cream cheese. I like either jalapeño flavored or pineapple flavored. The sweetness of the pineapple cream cheese goes great with the spicy sausage and jalapeño combo. 

Once stuffed, put the other half of the jalapeño on top and close em up. It’s ok if you over stuff em, we are going to wrap these in some tasty breakfast sausage in a second.

Once they are enclosed and you’ve licked the cream cheese off the side of each jalapeño, it’s time to wrap em.  I can usually get about 6 Armadillo Eggs from 1 lb of breakfast sausage. I used large jalapeños on this batch.

Once they are wrapped up and sealed tight, season each egg with some Stubb's Pork Rub. Once they are seasoned, it’s time to roll them in something crispy.  I have used panko bread crumbs before and they work fine. I love the flavor of spicy pork rinds and just happened to have a bag in the panty, so I went with this. Crush them and start rolling the eggs in the crunchy-porky goodness.

If you don’t have anything crunchy, just leave them as is.  They are still great without the crispy exterior.  Now that they are coated, place them on the hot smoker immediately. Do not let them sit in the pork rinds too long or they will get a little soggy. We want that crunch at the end. As you can see for the pic below, I rolled half in the pork rinds and left half naked. The pork rind coated eggs were definitely better.

After about 45 minutes, they start to darken and get a little “sweaty”. (Insert SNL joke here)  We are not looking for an internal temp as much as we are a crunchy sausage ball.  After about an hour, they look like this and are done. You can brush them with maple syrup if you’d like or leave them as is.  Remove them from the heat and let rest for a few minute. The interior is like hot cheesy lava, so be careful.

After they have a cooled a little, slice in half and enjoy.  These are perfect for tailgates as they can be assembled ahead of time and just tossed on a few hours before kickoff.

I’ve had friends of mine dip these in everything you could image. Queso dip, ranch dressing, maple syrup, honey mustard or blue cheese will all work with this combo of yumminess.

This is one of my favorite tailgate recipes and I hope you enjoy it too.  Let me know what you think and keep sending pics of your tailgate BBQ’s. GO BLUE!!!!!