Coffee, thyme, & bourbon - oh my?

So now that I've blown off a little steam with the post about my blogging, I thought I'd actually do one about food.

Sunday night I was feeling adventurous and decided to do something a little different. I picked up the new grilling cookbook that Mary loaned us (Weber's Real Grilling - btw, I don't get $ from Amazon for that link, it's just for reference) and decided to whip up the coffee rubbed pork loin chops with bourbon cream sauce. The rub was basically coffee, thyme, salt & pepper (1t each first three, 1/2t pepper). Oddly enough, the coffee and thyme worked well together; the coffee being more of an earthy flavor than the buzz-laced cup you have in the morning.

The real winner, though, was the bourbon cream sauce. It had a really mellow smoky flavor with only a tiny hint of the booze left. It was so good, in fact, that I wanted to share it with you:

• 1T butter
• 1/2 C finely chopped yellow onion (but I used shallot)
• 1t minced garlic
• 1/4 C bourbon
• 1 C low sodium beef stock
• 6 T heavy cream (I used half and half)
• 1t chopped fresh thyme
• S&P

Melt butter over med-high, add onion & cook until tender. Add garlic and cook 1 min more. Remove pan from heat and add bourbon. Carefully (watch for flaming!) return pan to heat. Let alcohol burn off, reduce heat to med, add beef stock & cream. Reduce to about 1/3 C (15-20 mins), stirring occasionally. Add thyme. S&P to taste.

For sides, I grilled up some portobello caps, zucchini ribbons, and russet potato. The sauce was even better on the portobellos than it was on the chops.

The coffee-chops were good, but I think next time I might keep the sauce and go for a more 'traditional' pork rub. Or not. We'll just have to wait and see on that one!

Oh, and doesn't the pork chop in the picture look kind of like a little piggy?