The Strawberries are here! Boneless Pork Chops with Strawberry Gastrique, Pecans and Gorgonzola

The Strawberries are HERE at last!  I've been buying and enjoying the Florida Strawberries for around a month now, and I think half the reason I buy the expensive inferior berries from down south is that when the New Jersey ones hit, they taste all that much sweeter!  Maybe they taste this good when you buy them fresh and local in Florida, maybe not.  All I know is that the plastic container of big fat berries in the supermarket cannot hold a candle to the fresh local berries I buy at the Farmer's Market in Trenton, or in a week when our organic farm share lets us start picking them ourselves.  So of course, at the Farmer's Market today, I got carried away and bought three quarts!  When I arrived home I immediately cleaned, hulled, sliced and sugared one of the quarts to have for dessert with some Halo Farms Lemon Cream Sorbet, toasted chopped pecans and whipped cream!  Then I decided that a nice gastrique style reduction would go nice with the boneless Pork Chops I bought for dinner,

So I sliced up about 1 1/2 cups of berries,

and put them in a pot with 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar, 3/4 cup White Wine (sauvignon blanc), 3/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt.

I boiled them...

and boiled them some more until they reduced about 3/4.  The sauce was looking nice and syrupy at this point so I removed from the heat and strained into a measuring cup through a mesh strainer.  It still looked a little thin to me,

So I put it back on the heat and reduced it some more.

While all of this was happening, I prepared a nice salad of fresh lettuces, tomatoes, and carrots I got at the Farmer's Market, and seasoned my Pork Chops with Kosher Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper, and Fresh Rosemary.
I browned the Pork Chops in a pan, and allowed them to rest, covered, for about 8 or 9 minutes, while toasted chopped pecans on the stove.

I plated by pouring a little of the gastrique on the plate, adding the chop, topping with some of the pecans and  crumbled Gorgonzola, and finished with a bit more of the gastrique on top.

Served with the salad, some steak fries on the side, and a glass of the Sauvignon Blanc, they were a delicious harbinger of the fresh bounty yet to come this spring!  The dessert rocked too!