Rosemary Garlic Grilled Pork Chops

It surprised me how much we enjoyed this recipe. I've only made pork chops one other time before and we didn't like them. But, my in-laws do these grilled, barbecue pork chops that I really love so I thought I'd give them another try. As you can see from my post topics, chicken gets a lot of attention around here. We'd actually had 2 chicken meals the week before this and I was determined to go a week without it. The pork chops I found were boneless and not super thick - really nothing special. The combination of the brown sugar, rosemary and cumin in the marinade really made them special though. I found this recipe on The Kitchn though I modified it a little bit. If you don't have a grill, I bet you could do these under your broiler too. You'd just preheat your broiler for about 5 minutes, then broil the chops on an upper rack for 5 minutes on each side. Enjoy!

Time: 40 minutes, plus a couple of hours to marinate
Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2 pork loin chops, about 1/2 inch thick
• 2 TBSP olive oil 
• 1/2 TBSP fresh rosemary
• 1/2 TBSP brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• pinch of cumin

Prep

1. Pull your rosemary off the stem and chop the leaves finely.
2. Peel and smash your garlic cloves with the side of your knife.
3. Combine 2TBSP olive oil, 1/2 TBSP chopped rosemary, 1/2 TBSP brown sugar, 3/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and pinch of cumin in a small bowl. 

4. Tenderize your pork chops by poking them all over with a fork. I use my handy meat tenderizer, aka meat torture device, but I think a fork would work just fine.
5. Rub the olive oil mixture all over your pork chops, cover and refrigerate. If you don't have time to marinate them, I bet they'd still be yummy.

6. About 40 minutes before you're ready to eat, preheat your grill to high and close the lid. I only used my 2 outer burners for this and cooked the Grilled Asparagus on the other side. 
7. Just after you preheat the grill, remove your pork chops from the fridge. Putting cold meat on a hot grill is not a good thing, apparently.

Cook

1. After your grill is preheated (our gas grill takes about 20 minutes to heat up and the temp was around 500°), carry your pork chops out to the grill and set them over the hot burner.  Cover the grill and cook the chops for 5 minutes. I set a timer so I'd know when to flip them.
2. After 5 minutes, flip your chops and cook them on the other side for 5 minutes. Set a timer again, just to be sure on your timing.

3. Remove the pork chops from the grill and wrap in foil. Let them rest until you're ready to eat - at least 10 minutes. 
4. Serve by itself or with a little Dijon mustard on the side.