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.)

Plum Jam

I feel like I've stepped into a new realm of domesticity--making my own jam. My sister-in-law Lori has a plum tree in her backyard and makes plum jam every summer. We usually get two or three jars from her stash, and let me tell you, we ration those bad boys out to last us a whole year. Safeway had plums on sale recently for a really reasonable price, so I thought to myself, "Why don't I just make plum jam for us and we can have more than just a few jars of it?" So I went and bot a ton of plums. Okay, not a literal ton, but it was just about five pounds. My mother-in-law had given me their plum jam recipe at one point, so I had that to go on, and my mom suggested I talk to my grandma about making jam because she's made A LOT of it over the years.

I headed to Walmart for the necessary supplies after texting some with Lori and getting a tutorial over the phone from my grandma. Walmart has a pretty big canning section which was cool. I bought a box of jars and a canning utensils set which had all the little things I needed:



I thought my friend Jen might want in on the jam making action, and sure enough she did. So Friday afternoon after we took our kids to Peter Piper Pizza for lunch (and to blow off some energy running around since it's too insanely hot here for them to play outside), we got started on the jam making endeavor. Lori had said they follow the directions in the Sure Jell packet, so that's what we did. I had to read through it several times before it made sense, so I'm hoping I can make my directions here slightly clearer. Keep in mind, this is just for plum jam but the instructions in the Sure Jell box had instructions for just about every kind of jam you could imagine, so consult that if you want to do something different. The Sure Jell website has all the recipes on there, too.

Plum Jam

6 cups prepared fruit (about 4 lb. fully ripe plums)
1/2 cup water
1 box SURE.JELL Fruit Pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine (optional)
8 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl (See tip below.)

Wash jars and screw bands in hot soapy water; rinse with warm water. Pour boiling water over flat lids in saucepan off the heat. Let stand in hot water until ready to use. Drain well before filling.

Pit plums but do not peel. Finely chop or grind fruit. Place fruit in saucepan; add water. Bring to boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 5 min. Measure exactly 6 cups prepared fruit into 6- or 8-qt. saucepot.

Stir pectin into fruit in saucepot. Add butter to reduce foaming, if desired. Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 min., stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam with metal spoon.

Ladle immediately into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with two piece lids. Screw bands tightly. Place jars on elevated rack in canner. Lower rack into canner. (Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches; add boiling water if needed.) Cover; bring water to gentle boil. Process 10 min. Remove jars and place upright on a towel to cool completely. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middles of lids with finger. (If lid springs back, lid is not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.)

*****

Okay, the directions from the website (what you just read above) were a lot easier than what was in the package of pectin, probably because that one has generic instructions for all fruits whereas this was specific to plum jam.

Anyway, instead of chopping up the plums we put them through the food grinder attachment I have for my KitchenAid mixture. It worked great!! We cut the plums in halves or quarters and then just stuck them in there and let the mixer do the work for us. I'm all for outsourcing or automating what I can.

And after jam instructional call with my grandma, I decided to skip the water bath step at the end. She said in all her years of making jam (which is a lot) she'd never done that because she figured you cook the fruit initially so why do that step. Her jam was always fantastic, so I figured I'd skip it too. Plus then I didn't have to buy the special canning pot and rack. I'm also all for saving money when I can!

We kind of goofed up a little because I had looked at the jelly section originally, not jam, so we ended up using too many plums. I measured out how much we had after the plums had cooked and found we had eight cups instead of six, so we did a little math to figure out how much extra sugar we'd need and added that so we didn't waste any. And then once everything was mixed into the pot Jen says, "You know, we didn't add any extra Sure Jell." Oops. We figured at worst it would just be a little runny but still edible.

The husband decided to make breakfast yesterday morning and we topped our toast with some of the jam. Fan-freakin-tastic, as Jen would say!!! It was so good. And it wasn't at all runny, I was pleasantly surprised. The only thing I would change the next time I make jam (and there will be a next time!) is to use the low sugar Sure Jell because seeing a mixing bowl with eight cups of sugar (actually it ended up being over 10 cups) was just disgusting. Apparently that's the recipe Lori uses, I just forgot about that when I went to buy my Sure Jell.

I'm pretty much hooked on canning now after this jam experiment. I can't wait to make more jam, and I want to try making pickles, and I may try canning pasta sauce, too. I tell you, I'm hooked! It also motivates me to have a garden next year because how awesome (and incredibly domestic) would it be to can the fruit and vegetables that I grow?!

But I draw that line at owning livestock.

Here's Jen putting the plums through the grinder:




Our "chopped" plums:


Fruit with sugar and pectin added:


Finished jam...yum!