Grilled Honey Mustard Pork Chops, lucky dogs

Part of the challenge of summer cooking (grilling) is not making the same thing week after week.

By August my creativity starts to lag.

Fortunately, as long as he can put meat and potatoes on the grill mon mari is happy.

All I need do is make the marinade….

The heat of a good Dijon-style mustard is nicely tempered with the sweetness of honey.

I use the supermarket honey that comes in a squeeze bottle for marinades rather than the single-flower artisan honey that I like on my bread.

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Our little girl dogs have had a wonderful week.

In case you don’t remember what they look like, here they are doing door-duty.

It’s imperative that they lie across thresholds, in doorways, at the foot of stairs…. I’m not certain what we are being guarded against but we are well-protected.

As are the petunias….

Back to their week.

First – note the tails on the pork chops.

Mon mari loves fat. especially fat that has been grilled. He eats the tail.

I, on the other hand, am not a fan of fat. I share mine with the dogs…. But they have to wait until the next day when I mix it with their dog food. No treats from the table.

That was one night.

The other six nights they had steak.

I told you they had a good week!

How did they get so lucky?

We went to dinner in the village. It wasn’t our village, but a neighboring village. We went last year and had a fun evening with great food, adequate wine and a perfect summer night.

This year we had crashing thunderstorms and steak so tough it was inedible.

Well, in fairness, I assume not every one’s steak was inedible, but mine was. (I think they used a different butcher shop this year…. I have a feeling they might not use him again.)

I didn’t manage even one bite of beef.

After many, many attempts to cut it, then pushing it around my plate for a bit I finally grabbed the baggie I had brought for scraps (remember, we have to bring our own plates – which means we have to clean them between courses) and surreptitiously tucked my steak into it.

Yeah, right…. Everyone at our table saw what I was doing, asked what kind of dogs I had, then offered their own steak remnants.

Someone even had a spare bag to give me as my own was quite full.

I ended up with enough steak for the girls for six days. Of course I had to get out the super-sharp big boning knife in order to cut it.

They have been very happy, very spoiled dogs.

I, on the other hand, was not the least bit happy.

I went to our local butcher shop yesterday…. The one that has good, aged beef.

I spent the rest of the annual budget on two steaks. Verdict to follow.