My version of the Bacon Explosion phenomenon

About 3 months ago I posted about a New York Times "Dining & Wine" article about the Bacon Explosion. In a fit of some sort of a what-the-hell moment, I recently went "hog wild" and decided to make one up for myself. I would have posted this earlier, but some stuff came up that relegated bloggishness to the back burner. Anyway, it was greasy, it was messy, but in the end I think it turned out quite well. Don't think I'll make one up with any regularity, but once in a while this is a tasty winner.

Here's the play-by-play:

Spread out your bacon into a square weave. The Bacon Explosion folks used a 5x5 of thick cut bacon, but a 7x7 for me fit a cookie sheet perfectly:

Dust the weave with BBQ rub:

Spread out your sausage to uniform thickness. Delicious Bob Evans wins the day here:

In the meantime, fry up your leftover bacon:

Now here is where I stray from the true Bacon Explosion recipe. I add cheese and onions. And I figure something that's this BAD for you deserves a cheese that is equally bad for you. And by "cheese" I mean an assumed cheese-type product. Velveeta. I laid out sliced Velveeta and sliced onions on the sausage, then included crumbled bacon that was cooked in the pan.

Carefully roll up the sausage leaving the bacon on the cookie sheet. Pinch the seam and the ends shut to keep all the cheesy, oniony, cooked bacony goodness inside:

Now, starting with the sausage roll end, roll the entire project the opposite way so that the bacon encapsulates the sausage:

Ready for the grill:

Just in case this turned out to be crap, I threw on a pork loin as a piggy backup to munch on. In any event, sprinkle some BBQ rub on the roll and grill for about an hour per inch of diameter. Then with about 15-20 minutes to go, slather it with BBQ sauce. The sweeter sauces would compliment the salty bacon rather well. I can't imagine a snappy tart sauce doing well, but do whatever floats your boat:

3 and 1/2 hours later (on charcoal) and it's done!

Slice and serve. I used onion buns. This dish may lop a couple months off your life, but they're the ones at the end, and those aren't any fun anyway. Enjoy!