Pork Chops with Tomatillo Sauce

Pork chops
Nice thick pork chops
2 T gound coriander
2 T ground cumin
2 T kosher salt
2 T black pepper
2 T olive oil

Mix together dry ingredients. Add olive oil to dry ingredients and mix well. Rub mixture over pork chops, and let sit at room temperature while making sauce.

Tomatillo and Apple Sauce
Basically you combine the most sour-green fruits, and try and balance it out with spice and sweetness.

4-5 fresh tomatillos, husks removed, cleaned, and chopped
2-3 green apples, depending on size, diced
1 garlic clove
1 t ground cumin
1 T lime juice
2 T honey
1 jalapeno

In a saucepan, add enough water to tomatillos to cover completely, and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft. Cool, and in blender purée tomatillos with garlic, cumin, lime juice, honey, and jalapeno. You may want to add half the jalapeno and taste before adding the rest. Taste sauce and balance sour, spicy-hot, and sweet flavors.

Transfer the sauce and stir in the diced apples.

Meanwhile prepare grill and when hot, turn heat down substantialy and cook pork chops on coolest part of grill until done. The Man used to say to cook your pork until 160° but now says 144° will kill trichinosis. The change in recommendation is similar to how engineers use to over-build buildings (more material than necessary, thicker walls, etc.) but now they have a theoretically better idea of material strenght. I usually take pork chops (boneless) off the grill at around 130°, which is fine for everyone except those with comprimised immune systems. Also, the pork chops were frozen at one point, which is just as effective for all but the thicker pork cuts.

Serve with sauce, and veggies. I rubbed some fresh zucchini with olive oil, salt and pepper, and sun-dried tomato flakes.

Quick Garden Sausage Medley

Olive Oil
2 Italian Sausages
Garlic, smashed and finely chopped
1/2 Onion, julienned
1 Yellow Sweet Pepper, julienned
Can o’ Tomatoes, diced ideally
1 cube chicken bullion, crushed
2 smallish zucchinis
4 T Pesto
Fennel Seed
S&P
Red Pepper flakes

Pasta of your choice, cooking simultaneously

Cook the Italian sausages using the method of your choice, as long as you choice is pan frying with a little olive oil. Remove, and keep warm. In the same skillet, sauté several cloves of garlic and the onion. Add the sweet pepper and cook until slightly soft over medium high heat. Stir in a can of tomatoes and the chicken bullion. When well mixed add the zucchini and pesto, and season with fennel seed to make everything more sausage-y, salt and pepper to make it taste like food, and red pepper flakes for a kick. Serve over pasta – we used homemade spinach linguini, dried from a separate pasta-making excursion. The spinach and zucchini were from the garden, the sweet pepper from Costco. . Let’s hear it for Costco produce. Three weeks in the fridge and not a single blemish. How do you like them [overpackaged and unorganic] apples?