Fun to say, yummy to eat

Chimichurri is an uncooked sauce or condiment that’s typically used for grilled meats. It appears to come from Argentinian cuisine as far as I can tell. I’ve read that it’s also used as a marinade. Think pesto sauce, but with parsley and garlic instead of basil and pine nuts.

Making good use of our herb garden

Michael has wanted to make chimichurri for a while now. When he heard that Nelson was going to make steak the other day, he asked if he could make chimichurri — finally. We had plenty of parsley in our tiny herb garden, so it made sense. Nelson and Michael worked on it together and Michael taste-tested (a lot).

Nelson and I are terrible gardeners and we’ve failed many times at growing simple herbs and small-garden fruits and vegetables. We know our problem—we tend to neglect and forget to water them—go figure! But this year we gave it another go… “because this year would be different” (we’re persistent to a fault). Surprisingly, we’ve been enjoying the ‘fruits of our labour’ albeit small—with basil for pesto and parsley for chimichurri, among the many other times we’ve used these two herbs in our cooking. Of course, we know the thanks really go to Mother Nature for the rainy summer which has proven to be the real gardener for us. Now our tomatoes are starting to ripen and they will soon become a great addition to our end-of-summer salads. Yay.

Gotta love garlic

Good thing we love garlic. There is plenty of garlic in chimichurri but we’re not complaining. We like to think we use garlic in a lot of food and in a lot of ways. However; this summer on our return trip from our vacation, while driving through a small town in Ontario, we discovered something interesting…and we tried something rather unexpected. We stopped at what we thought was a normal weekend community farmer’s market. It was that, but it was part of the town’s annual “Garlic Festival”. Huh… that’s a thing? So we strolled the market, bought some yummy butter tarts and home made cookies, and then checked out the main street and its numerous antique and vintage shops. In one such shop, the shop-owner offered us a treat—garlic chocolate chip cookies in honour of the garlic festival. What?! Sure, why not. The cookie tricked my mind and confused my tongue. It was weird to expect only the sweet taste, typical of a chocolate chip cookie, but to smell and taste garlic with every bite. Interesting—not terrible—but not great either. I’ve never before needed a mint after eating a cookie. We do love garlic, but we won’t be adding garlic to our desserts anytime soon (or ever)!

Road trips. Adventures. Trying new things.

We love a good road trip and finding unexpected gems along the way—like the garlic festival in a tiny town off the beaten path. These little adventures are so much fun and they’re a change of pace from our everyday life. Create your own adventure, and since you’ve got to eat… eat well, friends.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote