Bacon Wrapped Lil Smokies- quite possibly the best Tailgate food EVER!

So do you wanna knock the socks off of everyone at your next tailgate party?  I have a perfectly delicious and savory appetizer for you to try.  I just want to warn you that these contain bacon.   Bacon.  The reason why I will never ever be a vegetarian.  The food that I consider to be in a food group of its own.   Bacon- one of the items I would choose to take with me to a desert island in the middle of nowhere.  I bet if Tom Hanks had bacon in Cast Away the story would have been entirely different.   Just saying.  

Anyway, here are the ingredients I used to make the glaze.   Ketchup, BBQ sauce, ground mustard powder, red pepper flakes, brown sugar and maple syrup.

And here is also where things get a little sketchy.  I am not so great at measuring things.   When I cook- I tend to let my free spirit go.  And that means I just throw things together.   And trust me- this not such a good thing.   There have been many many failures.  But, I did try to track how much of everything I used because I am trying to be a more helpful blogger.

I whisked the glaze first and set it aside.

Next I wrapped the bacon around the lil smokies and used a brush to glaze each peace of heaven.

This is where the picture turn ugly.  Very ugly.   But even though these smokies looked burnt- okay they were technically burnt- they tasted great.   The glaze baked up very quickly in the oven and the brown sugar likely caused them to burn easily.   So I made a second batch another day and baked them at a slightly lower temperature which helped some.

And here is the finished product.   Not such a nice pic but I was packing them up to take to a friends so we could watch the game.  These are tasty.  Very very tasty.  In fact- my one friend called them little bits of honey baked ham bacon things.

Bacon Wrapped Lil Smokies:

for the glaze:

1 generous TBS ketchup

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 TBS BBQ sauce

1 TBS maple syrup

1 tsp ground mustard

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 pkg lil smokes

I pkg of center cut bacon cut into thirds

Dry the lil smokes carefully and place on cookie sheet in freezer.   Freeze for at least 

30 minutes.  This will help the bacon adhere to the lil smokies.

Keep the bacon cold in the refrigerator until you are ready to wrap the lil smokies.  

Whisk together the ingredients for the glaze and set aside. 

Wrap a  piece of bacon around each lil smokie and place on a cookie sheet covered in foil.   Glaze the tops of each wrapped smokie with the glaze mix.   

Bake at 345 degrees for 35-40 minutes until smokies are lightly browned on top (or slightly burnt on top :) )

I turned mine halfway through to ensure that the bottoms did not brown too much.   

Enjoy.  You can share them if you like.   But there would be no shame in eating them all yourself.  No shame at all.   

Bacon Coma-

Marci