Pineapple Grilling Sauce

I've been big on grilling sauce made from fresh fruit the last few months. I threw this one together today in about 5 minutes total, plus 2 hrs in the crock pot.

2 quart bags full of frozen pineapple--probably 2-3 pineapples worth
1 cup honey
1-2 tbsp five spice powder
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 inch fresh grated ginger
pinch of kosher salt
15-20 grinds of fresh black pepper
1 vanilla bean (split & scraped....and put the whole thing in the pot)

Cook on high for about 2-3 hours, and then transfer it to the blender and puree. This made exactly 3 pints for me. :)

Tonight I slathered it on grilled pork chops, and served it with grilled zucchini/red onion/yellow bell peppers, orange honeydew melon and a green salad. Absolutely, positively wonderful!

Hawaiian BBQ Pork Cutlets

Doncha hate it when a recipe has "Hawaiian" in the title, and the only thing even remotely "Hawaiian" about it is that it has pineapple in it? Yeah, me too. But this is one of those recipes. ;) haha!

No photos again tonight, sorry! But, it's pretty much the same method as my Pineapple Upside Down Pork.

What you need: 8 boneless pork cutlets, your favorite BBQ sauce (I like the recipe linked below), a can of crushed pineapple, flour, Old Bay seasoning, olive oil.

Start by mixing a handful of Old Bay into about a cup of flour. Dredge the pork cutlets in the flour/Old Bay mixture. Put them in a hot skillet (medium-high or slightly lower) with about a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Cook till golden brown on the bottoms, flip them over. Smear a spoonful of BBQ sauce on the browned side while the other side browns.

When the bottom is brown, flip the pork cutlets sauce-side-down into a baking dish and smear the other side with the BBQ sauce. Then add a spoonful of crushed pineapple to the top of each pork cutlet. Continue this method till all of your pork cutlets are in the baking dish, stacking them as you go.

Throw the baking dish in the oven at 375 degrees (or higher, I used a glass pan and that's about as hot as I'm comfortable using it) for about 20 mins.

Here is the BBQ sauce that I used...amazingly yummy, like EVERYTHING this guy cooks. :)

Pineapple Upside Down....Pork?

Not entirely sure what to call this. Kind of a cooking fail, but it tasted good so I thought I'd share it anyway. I started out thinking I'd make a BBQ pork cutlet with pineapple on top, and it went in a different direction entirely by the time I bought all the ingredients. haha! I suppose I'm just as scatter brained when I shop as I am most of the time! :)

I just realized I put margarine in my ingredients photo when I used vegetable oil instead, so ignore that. I also forgot the garlic....so, um, use your imagination and pretend there's a head of garlic in this photo, ok? Ok.

What you're looking at:

Boneless pork cutlets (you could totally use 8 cutlets with the same amount of other ingredients, or even use thick cut pork chops. This is what I had in my freezer, pork-wise, and I only needed 4 for dinner tonight.); Flour; your favorite grill seasoning. I'm in love with the one pictured, and use it in most things; ground cinnamon; Fresh ginger root; soy sauce; apple cider vinegar; ketchup; crushed pineapple in 100% juice; dark brown sugar; salt & pepper.

Not present for picture day: Vegetable oil & a head of garlic.

For some reason, I didn't include the ingredients for the rice I served this with. For the rice, you'll need jasmine rice, maraschino cherries (in a jar), and some chopped nuts (whatever you like....doesn't really matter. I used almonds).


So, I started out by heating a skillet over medium high heat, with a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Mix a couple cups of flour with a good palmful of the grill seasoning and about a teaspoon of the cinnamon. Season the pork cutlets with salt and pepper, and then dredge them in the flour. Toss them in the pan and cook till they are good and golden brown (about a minute on each side). Pull them out and put them in a glass baking dish (I used a 9x9").

Mix about a cup of the dark brown sugar, a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, a couple tablespoons of soy sauce, a good squirt of ketchup, an inch of freshly grated ginger root, and a good sized clove of garlic (minced finely) in a bowl till the sugar dissolves completely. Pour it over the pork cutlets, and flip them around to coat.

Then open a can of crushed pineapple (I suppose if you were super ambitious, you could use a fresh pineapple, but you'd probably need to add a bit of pineapple juice), and pour it evenly over the top of the pork cutlets and sauce.

Throw the pan in the oven at 350 degrees for about half an hour.

Meanwhile, make your rice. I used 1 1/3 cup rice, 2 cups water, and about 1/3 cup of the juice/syrup mixture from the jar of cherries in mine. Rethinking it, I might use all water instead of the juice/syrup next time. It tasted awesome, but the color was weird. haha! Chop up about 10-12 cherries. When the rice is finished cooking, mix in the cherries and about half a cup of chopped nuts.

Serve the pork chops over the rice. :)