Grilled Pork Cutlets

This is completely unrelated to anything having to do with food, but have you discovered Spotify yet? Oh man...I'm so in love with it. It's similar to Pandora except if you search on a song or artist or album, you get to choose what you want to listen to instead of getting a mix based on that. Oh man...it's freakin' fantastic! Right now I'm listening to one of the Glee soundtracks. The only problem is that I get overwhelmed with music choices thinking of everything I could possibly listen to. The other day I listened to the entire Annie soundtrack. Oh how I love Annie, you have no idea. Then Boy #1 came downstairs when his afternoon quiet time was done and said, "Mom, what are you listening to? Turn it off, this isn't good." He's five. Sheesh.

Anyway, I've tried to stick with most of our dinners coming from the grill or crockpot. I remembered a Cook's Illustrated magazine I bought a couple summers ago that is aptly named Summer Grilling. They're clever folks there at Cook's Illustrated when it comes to naming things. I couldn't remember ever having grilled pork before, so I wanted to give this a try. Plus I had just about everything on hand for it which is always a plus.

Grilled Pork Cutlets
Source: Cook's Illustrated Summer Grilling 2009 magazine

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves
3/4 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
12 thin-cut boneless pork chops (about 2 pounds), trimmed of excess fat and pounded into 1/4-inch thick cutlets

Combine vinegar, oil, garlic, thyme, sugar, salt, and pepper in large zipper lock plastic bag. Transfer chops to bag and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to two hours.

Turn all burners on gas grill to high and heat grill with lid down until very hot, about 15 minutes. Scrape grate clean with grill brush. Dip wad of paper towels in oil; holding wad with tongs, wipe cooking grate.

Remove cutlets from bag and discard marinade. Grill cutlets with lid down until bottoms begin to turn opaque around edges, about 2 minutes. Flip cutlets and grill until just cooked through, about 30 seconds. Transfer to platter, tent with foil, and let rest 5 minutes. Serve with Spicy Fruit Salsa.

Spicy Fruit Salsa
Spicy Fruit Salsa:
1 jalapeno chile, seeded and minced (don't seed if you want it spicy)
1 shallot, minced
2 tsp cider vinegar
2 tsp honey
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 ripe peaches, pitted and chopped fine
2 ripe plums, pitted and chopped fine
1 Tbsp finely chopped basil leaves
Table salt

Whisk jalapeno, shallot, vinegar, honey, and oil in small bowl. Let sit until flavors combine, about 15 minutes.

Combine peaches and plums in a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup of fruit to bowl with jalapeno mixture and mash with potato masher until smooth. Add mashed fruit mixture and basil to bowl with cut fruit and stir until combined. Season with salt and let sit until flavors combine, about 15 minutes.

*****

Let me tell you...I mashed and mashed my fruit and never got it smooth, so I finally gave up and kept it chunky. I know a lot of people don't dig on meat with a sweet accompaniment, but some combinations don't bother me. Like this one. The fruit salsa was so tasty with the jalapeno and the bite it gave the salsa, mixed with sweet peaches and plums. Yum! I don't think I read the recipe for the salsa all the way through before starting dinner, so I didn't let it sit as long as was recommended, but it was still tasty. Boy #1 didn't want any of the "sauce" on his meat, but Boy #2 had it and loved it. The husband and I loved it, so I call it a success! If you plan ahead enough for the fruit salsa, this really comes together fast. We had it with some steamed broccoli and super tasty Rick Bayless Barbecue Baked Beans. This was a great tasty summer dinner! There were actually two variations included in the magazine, too. One used rosemary and red wine vinegar for the marinade, and the other called for cumin, cilantro, and lime juice. I may have to try one of those at some point too!

(Sadly my camera was upstairs, and instead of making my family wait to eat while I went to grab it, I took a picture with my phone.)

Grilled Chicken Salad with Rustic Guacamole, Romaine and Queso Anejo

It seems like forever that I've been away from my blog! Hello, blog...have you missed me? Two weekends ago I went to Tucson, AZ with some friend on a scrapbooking weekend retreat. The last time I really sat down and scrapbooked, I was nine months pregnant with my youngest son (who will be three in November). Yeah, it had been awhile. My house and family were somewhat neglected for probably two weeks leading up to said weekend while I went through years of pictures on my computer to get prints made, planned out what pages I needed/wanted to do, organized my supplies, etc. I had a fantastic time and ended up doing something like 30 pages and made an album for our Santa pictures, so it was definitely productive. Anyway, once I got home from that weekend I was excited to get back into the swing of my blog, but I had a couple weeks' worth of chores to catch up on, so the blog kind of fell to the wayside. Then this past week was Boy #1's last week of summer vacation (my baby is starting kindergarten on Monday...how is that possible?!), so I was trying to cram in one on one time with him and do lots of fun stuff before he starts school.

So here it is Saturday night...the husband is out celebrating a friend's birthday, my kiddos are in bed, and I'm going to get caught up on blog posts. I have eight nine (forgot about the next Summer Drink Series beverage!) posts to do, which I'm guessing won't all get done tonight, but I'll slog my way through as many as I can. I had meant to start sooner, but I've recently discovered Pintrest.com and have a tendency to get sucked into that since finding out about it.

Anyway, I had a hankering for some Rick Bayless recently while working on my menu plan, and I came across this salad. I'm all about salad in the summer because it's so ridiculously hot here. I knew I couldn't go wrong with something from the Mexican Everyday cookbook, and I was surprised at how many salads were in there!

Grilled Chicken Salad with Rustic Guacamole, Romaine and Queso Anejo
Source: Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless

DRESSING:
½ cup vegetable or olive oil, plus a little more for onion
4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
Fresh hot green chiles to taste (I like 2 serranos or 1 large jalapeno), stemmed and halved
½ cup fresh lime juice
¾ cup (loosely packed) cilantro, roughly chopped
Salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

GRILLED CHICKEN SALAD:
4 medium (about 1¼ pounds total) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 medium white onion, cut into ½-half-inch slices
2 ripe avocados
8 cups romaine hearts, sliced crosswise at ½-inch thick
1/3 cup grated Mexican queso anejo or other garnishing cheese (Romano or Parmesan)

Directions:
Heat oil in small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chiles; cook, stirring frequently, until garlic is soft and lightly browned (usually 1 to 2 minutes). Pour oil, garlic and chiles into blender jar or food processor. Add lime juice, cilantro, black pepper, and 1 scant teaspoon salt. Process garlic mixture until smooth.

Pour 1/3 of garlic mixture over chicken breasts, spreading it evenly over all sides.

Heat a grill pan or gas grill to medium to medium-high heat (or start a charcoal fire and let it burn until coals are medium hot and covered with white ash). Lightly brush or spray onion slices with oil; sprinkle with salt. Lay chicken and onion on grill pan or grill. Cook until chicken is just cooked through and onion is well browned (3 to 4 minutes on each side). Chop onion into small pieces and scoop into bowl. Set the chicken aside to cool.

Pit and peel avocados, scooping flesh into bowl with onion. Add another 1/3 of garlic mixture, then coarsely mash everything together with old-fashioned potato masher, large fork or back of spoon. Taste and season with salt (usually about ½ teaspoon).

Scoop the sliced romaine into large bowl. Drizzle on remaining 1/3 of garlic mixture and toss to combine. Divide between 4 dinner plates. Scoop a portion of guacamole into center of each plate. Cut each breast into cubes and arrange over guacamole. Sprinkle each plate with garnishing cheese. Serve.

*****

I ended up doing mine a little differently. I had planned on making something different for dinner in the crockpot, but I realized it wasn't going to happen because I had forgotten to put what I needed into the crockpot. So I already had some cooked, shredded chicken on hand, so instead of grilling the chicken in the dressing, I just mixed some into my shredded chicken. I knew this wasn't something my kids would eat, so I only made half the guacamole called for. I loved using the dressing to flavor the guacamole, by the way.

The husband and I thought this was FANTASTIC. The dressing was fresh and spicy and wow! Having it on the chicken, mixed in the guacamole, and as dressing on the salad made sure that you always had some of its spicy kick on your bite. I will definitely make this salad again. Yum!

Green Chile Cheeseburgers

I've been intrigued by green chile cheeseburgers for quite awhile. I saw an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where he made a version, and they looked SO GOOD! Then I got a Cook's Illustrated special edition that had a recipe for them, and ever since I saw that I knew I wanted to make them. I had originally planned to make these for a Friday date night dinner, but then I needed to reorder my meal plan a couple weeks ago and decided to have them during the week but just make regular burgers for my kiddos. I didn't know how spicy these would be, and the boy doesn't like spicy.

Green Chile Cheeseburgers
From Cook's Illustrated

3 Anaheim chiles, stemmed, halved lengthwise, and seeded
3 jalapeno chiles, stemmed, halved lengthwise, and seeded
1 onion, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch thick rounds
1 medium garlic clove, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 teaspoon)
table salt and ground black pepper
1 1/2 pounds 85 percent lean ground beef
4 slices deli American cheese

Using a charcoal grill, gas grill or indoor grill pan, grill chiles and onion until vegetables are lightly charred and tender. Transfer vegetables to bowl, cover, and let cool 5 minutes. Remove skins from chiles and discard; separate onion rounds into rings.

Transfer chiles, onion, and garlic to food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Transfer all but 1/4 cup chopped chile mixture to empty bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste; set aside. Process remaining mixture until smooth.

Combine beef, pureed chile mixture, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in large bowl and knead gently until well incorporated. Form mixture into four 3/4-inch-thick patties and make shallow indentation in center of each.

Grill burgers, covered, over hot fire until well browned on first side, 3 to 5 minutes. Flip burgers, top with chopped chile mixture and cheese, and continue to grill, covered, until cheese is melted and burgers are cooked to desired doneness, 3 to 5 minutes. Serve.

*****

Our grill was out of commission when I made these, so I roasted the peppers under the broiler and skipped the onion. I added some onion powder to the chiles in the food processor to make up for it a bit. Ours were probably a little more on the hot side because I did the whole chile mixture between two burgers, plus I was only using a pound of ground beef. My only complaint was that I thought the burgers could have used two slices of cheese instead of just one, but if the chile mixture were reduced (or the amount it's supposed to be) one slice would probably be okay. These were definitely tasty and definitely a burger that will grace our table again at some point.

Jamaican Jerk Kabobs

I figured since Jamaican jerk usually equates to spicy, this would be a good dinner for the husband and I to have on our Friday night mini date, where we eat dinner after the kids go to bed. The boy doesn't like spicy, so I generally save spicy dinners for just the husband and I...it's easier than fighting at the dinner table. I love kebabs, so I was really excited to try this recipe, plus it sounded super easy.

Jamaican Jerk Kabobs
From Food.com

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, and cut into 24 chunks
2 green onions
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon gingerroot, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 red bell peppers, cut in 1 inch pieces

In a blender at high speed, blend onions, chile, ginger, vinegar, allspice, thyme, salt, and 2 tablespoons olive oil until combined. Place Chicken chunks in a zip-tight plastic bag with marinade, turning to coat. Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, toss red pepper pieces with remaining olive oil in small bowl.

Preheat the broiler or grill with rack close to heat source.

On 4 metal skewers, alternately thread chicken and red pepper. Brush Kabobs with any remaining marinade. Cook a total of ten minutes, turning once, or until chicken is no longer pink inside.

*****

I have to say, this marinade smelled really weird. I was not excited about this dinner at all. The vinegar seemed really overpowering. So I figured I'd tinker with it. I increased the amount of olive oil--probably another two tablespoons--and added in some crushed red pepper. I still wasn't 100% sure about it, but I didn't really know what else to do with it to jazz it up. I figured if it was bad, we'd have turkey roll-ups for dinner instead.

We ended up really liking it! I was honestly surprised. When I went out to the grill to flip the skewers I was surprised that they actually smelled good. I was still skeptical. Even when I dished up our plates I still wasn't sure what to think. I even started eating red peppers first instead of the chicken pieces. I let the husband try the chicken first, and he said it was good, so then I went for it. He was right, it was pretty tasty. I don't know if it's something I'd necessarily make in high rotation, but I'd probably make it again.

Pioneer Woman's Pico de Gallo

This will be my second time making PW's pico de gallo recipe, although apparently I didn't post it before. I really, really love pico de gallo...the chunky vegetables, the combination of fresh flavors...yum. And of course I have yet to go wrong with a PW recipe!!

Pioneer Woman's Pico de Gallo

5 whole Plum (roma) Tomatoes
1/2 whole Large (or 1 Small) Onion
3 whole Jalapeno Peppers
Cilantro
Lime Juice
Salt To Taste

Chop jalapenos, tomatoes and onions into a very small dice. (Leave seeds in your jalapenos for a hotter pico). Adjust amount of jalapenos to your preferred temperature. Next, chop up a nice-sized bunch of cilantro. Just remove and discard the long leafless stems before chopping. No need to remove the leaves from the stems completely. Place all of these ingredients together in a bowl and give it a good stir.

Squeeze the juice of half of one lime into the bowl. Add salt to taste and stir again.

*****

Yum. That's all I have to say about that.

Turkey Salad Wraps

Did you know that Whole Foods has an app for the iPhone? They do. I heart Whole Foods (although I can't afford to shop there on a routine basis), and I heart them even more after I found that cool app. I needed some dinner ideas for this week and decided to check that out and see what I found. Since it's blazing hot and I don't feel like heating up my kitchen, I searched their sandwich recipes. When I got the new fridge and was cleaning out the old one I came across a bag of diced turkey meat that needed to be used up. Safeway had cooked turkey breasts for $5 awhile back, so I bought one and diced it up and stuck it in the freezer for later use. Honestly I had kind of forgotten about it. When I saw this recipe I thought it would be perfect because it would be a light summer dinner and use up the turkey I have!

The husband, however, is not a fan of turkey, so if he asks (since I don't think he checks my blog anymore), I'm telling him it's chicken. Same goes for the boy so he doesn't blab that it's turkey!

Turkey Salad Wraps

Salt to taste
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless turkey breast fillets
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup lowfat yogurt
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Pepper to taste
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1 cup frozen yellow corn, thawed and drained
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped
4 tortillas, preferably red chile variety
1 pint alfalfa sprouts

Bring 2 quarts water and 1 teaspoon salt to a simmer in a medium pot over low heat. Add turkey and simmer 10 to 12 minutes, or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate and set aside to let cool for 15 minutes, then cut into 1/2-inch cubes.

Whisk together mayonnaise, yogurt, lime juice, and cumin in a small bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add cooked turkey, celery, onions, corn and jalapeños and toss to coat.

Spoon about 1 cup of the turkey salad onto each tortilla, then top with a generous handful of sprouts. Roll up and serve immediately.

*****

I'm only making a couple variations. In the past when the husband has gone grocery shopping for me, he's been unable to find plain yogurt, so instead of making him go through that rigmarole again I'm going to use sour cream instead. And I forgot to put red onion on my grocery list, so I'll have to make due with a regular yellow onion. And I don't like frozen corn, so I don't buy, which means I'm going to use canned corn instead. And I don't have alfalfa sprouts, so we'll deck out our wraps with lettuce and possibly tomato if I think it would work after tasting the final product. There's quite a bit of the pasta salad from yesterday leftover, so I think we'll just have that on the side and call it good.

*****

This was really yummy!!! We all really liked it, although the boy really just picked out the turkey. The husband had the leftovers a couple days later and said it was definitely a lot better the first time around. There wasn't a whole lot left anyway. I will definitely make this again, and I think chicken could easily be substituted for the turkey. Oh, the red onion. Flavor-wise I don't think it would add a whole lot, but it would be nice for the color. And we did have them with lettuce and tomato. Man, just typing this makes me want to have it again!

Crab Quesadillas

A few weeks ago, a recipe I used to make all the time popped into my head. I think the last time I made it was before the boy was born. I had a coupon for imitation crab, and it was on sale, so I figured I'd get it and make these. They're so easy, and they're really tasty. I don't know how I forgot about them--we used to have them pretty often, and we really like them. They're another Cooking Light recipe.

Crab Quesadillas
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
3/4 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 pound lump crabmeat, shell pieces removed
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
4 (8-inch) fat-free flour tortillas

Preheat broiler.

Combine first 6 ingredients, stirring well. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons cheese over each tortilla. Divide crab mixture evenly among tortillas. Fold in half, pressing gently to seal.

Place the filled tortillas on a baking sheet. Broil for 1 minute or until the tortilla is lightly browned.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 quesadilla)

CALORIES 275 (28% from fat); FAT 8.6g (sat 3.7g,mono 3.2g,poly 0.9g); IRON 2.2mg; CHOLESTEROL 58mg; CALCIUM 187mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30g; SODIUM 484mg; PROTEIN 18.5g; FIBER 2g

Cooking Light, APRIL 2004

*****

I didn't have green onions, but I didn't really miss them in the filling. And, like I said, I used imitation crab instead of real. Obviously it's not quite as good, but it does the job. Of course I used more cheese than was called for as well. I know when I used to make these I did them differently than the broiler, but I couldn't remember how. I may have just done them in a skillet, but this time I used the broiler. I watched them carefully so they wouldn't burn and then once they were browned, I took them out and flipped them over so the cheese would completely melt. I know the recipe says four servings, but the husband and I each had two, so I would say it's really two servings unless you have a lot of filling sides with it. I was going to make some pinto beans to go on the side, but I didn't have pinto beans in the pantry. Oops. I have two more bags of imitation crab in the freezer, so we'll probably have this again sometime in the future.