Chimichurri Basics

Have you ever tried chimichurri?  Maybe you have, but you didn't know it!

Chimichurri is a sauce which you can use as a dipping sauce, a salad dressing, or a marinade for meat.  This style of sauce is very common in Uruguay and Argentina, often served with beef.  Here is Wisconsin, you might not only find it as a dipping sauce for Argentinian beef, but also as one of the dipping sauces served with tacos or empanadas.

Early summer is a good time of year to talk about chimicurri and how to make it.  That's because the main ingredient is a green herb.  I am pretty sure you can experiment with any kind of green, leafy herb for your chimichurri sauce.  The most commonly used ones are flat-leaf parsley or cilantro.  

You can use a blender, a food processor or a knife to finely chop the ingredients.  The basic ingredients are:

1 big bunch of herbs

1 clove of garlic

1/4 cup of olive oil (or another kind if you don't have olive)

2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice (or the bottled kind if you don't have a lemon)

2 Tablespoons vinegar (red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar are best)

Fresh red chile pepper (or substitute red pepper flakes) - this is optional if you want a little heat in your sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Wash the herbs really well.  The easiest way is to fill a big bowl with water.  Dunk the herbs in there and swish them around.  Lift them out and put them into a colander.  Dump the dirty water on your plants outside.  Repeat this process until the water does not look dirty.

Pat the herbs dry with a clean towel.  Remove any yucky leaves and break off any thick stems.  Put those in your compost.

Chop the herbs and garlic until they are really small.  Then add the other ingredients and mix well.  Or, just put the herbs, garlic and liquids into the food processor and pulse a few times, then process till everything is mixed.  You can add a little extra lemon juice and vinegar if it is too thick.

This batch of chimichurri is made with cilantro.

You can see some ingredients here.  You can experiment
with different flavors of oil, vinegar and lemon or lime.

This is what it looks like when it is chopped.  Use
a plastic spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl so
you get everything mixed.  That blade is sharp!  
If you are a kid, get help from a grown-up.

Storing chimichurri, pesto and other sauces in reusable glass
jars is a good idea.  Put a little paper label on top with the name
of what's inside and the date.  If you aren't going to use the sauce
right away, put it in your freezer.

What herbs are growing in the All Peoples Darius Simmons Community Garden?  Maybe you can find some and experiment with making chimichurri or pesto.  Perhaps you could experiment with:

Basil

Chives

Oregano

Cilantro

Flat leaf parsley

Garlic chives (eliminate the garlic clove if you use these)

Mint

Sage

Tarragon

Although purslane is not an herb, it's worth experimenting with those leaves too!

Once your chimichurri is made, you can use it as a dipping sauce or to marinade chicken or beef or pork.  Another easy idea is to cook some pasta, drain it, and put some chimichurri or pesto into the pasta pan, dump the pasta back in, put it over low heat and carefully stir it up for a couple of minutes until it is warm and mixed.  

Have fun experimenting!!

The Plant Diaries: We've Got Mail!

We've got mail!  

Ever since our tomato plant friends, Tom & Mat O. wrote their first letter to All Peoples, we have been hoping to hear from them again.  One day, we missed them so much that we put on our masks, drove over to see them took a couple of sneaky photos.  We don't want to be helicopter parents, but gosh, they are growing up so quickly!  But never could we have guessed that they would send us this news so soon!  Here's the letter we just received:

Dear APC Friends,

We are bursting with excitement to share our big news – WE’RE EXPECTING! We’ve included a picture so you can see the beginnings of our little babies. They’re just little blossoms now, but it won’t be long before they are strong and robust tomatoes.

 

We really hadn’t planned on starting our family so soon, but there were a few days when we drank in a little too much sun. That and the healthy, organic soil we’re living in  made us decide there was really no reason to wait. And we’re not the only ones. Our neighbors in the pots on either side of us are also looking forward to the arrival of their red little bundles of juiciness.

 

Our friends, the Radishes, advise us to enjoy every moment, because these kids grow up so fast. A whole bunch of their children left to start their careers filling empty stomachs. We’ve included their last “class” picture before they were packed into bags and took off. They’re a crunchy bunch!

 

That’s news for now. Until we talk again, remember to set your roots firmly in the soil and reach high in the sky!

Peace and love,

Tom & Mat O

Tom & Mat O. sent us this selfie!

Tom & Mat O. sent us this photo of their neighbors, the Radishes.

Make Chive Pesto While the Sun Shines

This is the time of year when there are chives, chives and more chives!  

When I was a little girl, my mom would always say, "You gotta make hay while the sun shines."  Maybe some of you have heard that phrase.  Even if you haven't, you get the idea: it is best to complete a task or harvest your crop while you can, before time runs out and the moment to harvest or complete the task passes.

Well, we are not talking about hay.  We are talking about chives! 

 

Chive patch beside the All Peoples Greenhouse

As summer progresses and it gets hotter outside, the chive flowers dry up and the chive leaves sometimes get a little tough or even turn brown.  So, in June, while we have nice, fresh, juicy green chives in abundance, it is good to DO something with them.  Then we can enjoy them all year around.

We already learned how to make chive flower vinegar in a previous chive story.  Let's see what else we can do with chives!

Did you know you can freeze chives?  Cut small bunches from your plant with scissors.  Sort and wash the chives with cold water. Dry them with a clean dish towel.  

After you cut your chives from the plants, spread them
out on your counter and pick out any brown ones.  You can 
use a scissors to cut any brown tips off of otherwise
perfectly good green chives.

Wash the chives really well, then dry them with a towel.

Cut the clean, dry chives into small pieces and freeze them.  I wrap little packets of them in wax paper and store them in a container in my freezer.  Then, in the winter, when I want to make baked potato soup or a stew, I can pull out a little chive packet and dump the frozen chives right in.

Little frozen chive packets

When I harvested my chives the other day, I accidentally cut a few of the flower stems too.  That's OK.  Those stems are not good to eat, but you can set them aside while the flowers dry.  Then carefully turn the flowers upside down over a bowl to catch the chive seeds.  You can save those seeds to plant chives in a new location next year or to share with a friend!  Chive plants are perennial, and should come back year after year if you take good care of them.

These chive flowers are already too dry to eat.

One tasty treat you can make with green chives is pesto!  Pesto is basically a paste, made from ground up herbs, that you can use to spread on crackers or toast or as a sauce with pasta.  To make chive pesto you need a lot of chives.  Start with a small and simple recipe.

1/2 cup freshly grated cheese (Parmesan, Romano or a hard cheddar - just not a gooey cheese)

2 cups chopped chives (wash them, dry them, cut them into pieces about 1/2 inch long)

1 ounce chopped almonds (use a small handful of whole ones and chop them up)

1 small clove of garlic (chop it into a couple of chunks)

1/8 c olive oil

You really need a food processor or maybe a blender to do this.  In a processor, just use the regular knife blade.  (If you are a kid reading this, be sure to have a grown-up do the things which involve sharp tools like the processor and the knife.)

Shred/grate the cheese right in the processor.  Add the chives, almonds and garlic.  Process until it is all chopped up.  Slowly drizzle in the olive oil through the small opening as the processor is running.  You should get a pretty smooth pesto, but a little chunky is OK too.  Add salt and pepper until it tastes good to you.  

Chop the chives

It should look like this when it is ready.
See the little canning jar?  Any little clean jar
or airtight container is fine for freezing pesto.

Scoop 1/3 of the pesto into a small canning jar, and 1/3 of it into another jar. Push the pesto into the jar with a spoon and smooth the top. Pour just a touch of olive oil over the pesto and pick up the jar to swirl it over the surface.  This helps to keep your pesto green.  Put on the lids on and screw them tight and freeze.

With the 1/3 of the fresh pesto that you have left you can make yummy chive pesto pasta.  Boil some noodles in salted water.  When they are done (not mushy), drain the water and pour a bit of olive oil over them.  Stir with a wooden spoon or spatula.  Add the pesto and stir over very low heat (especially if your pesto was in the fridge for a bit) until the noodles are covered.  Add a little salt if needed.

Sprinkle a few sunflower nuts or other seeds over
your pasta to give it a little crunch.

You can experiment with making pesto using different herbs and different kinds of nuts.  This was the first year I tried making chive pesto, and I think it is one of the best kinds!  

So, have fun making Chive Pesto while the sun shines!

Submitted by Linda.  

Students in the Kids Working to Succeed program are encouraged to try this and other recipes at home.

Plant Diaries: The Babies are Growing

The Grow Room is empty!  Where are the plant babies now? 

Remember our friends, Tom and Mat O?  They are growing tall alongside
their new friends in Kingo Lutheran Church's community garden.

They are growing so fast, you can hardly find them like among all of their new friends!

Thanks to that nice lady who let Tom and Mat O stay at her house for a couple
of nights!  That really helped them to get ready to be out in the big garden!

Tom and Mat O are pretty famous.  Do you remember the first letter we received from them?  They are even featured in a new short film which All Peoples is using to help teach kids about hardening off their plants before planting them into a big pot or a big garden.  You can watch the movie too!  It's called Baby Plants.

Some of our plants went to St. John's Lutheran Church in Brookfield, where
they met their new caretakers.  The plants spent a few nights on porches in Brookfield,
Waukesha, Pewaukee and Mukwonago before venturing out into the bigger world.

Out at Holy Cross in Menomonee Falls, the youth put some effort into creating
lovely warm, rich beds for a wide variety of baby plants from All Peoples.

Baby plants require a lot of tender, loving care, and we can see that these babies
are being tucked into their new beds with gentle hands.

Meanwhile, back at All Peoples Church, many of the plants are spending a little time in the greenhouse.
Here they are getting used to their new, larger pots, which will be their permanent homes
on neighborhood porches and in the All Peoples Community Garden.

Yesterday, a small cucumber plant was spotted skipping down Clarke Street in the hands of a small boy.  Are pickles in his future?  Stay tuned for more plant adventures!!

This story is brought to you by the All Peoples Community Garden Porch Pots and Partner Plots programs.  During Covid-19, the community garden is moving out into the community in new and broader ways.  If you are a caretaker for a porch pot or partner plot, please submit your photos and stories to linda@allpeoplesgathering.org or post them in the comments.

Submitted by Linda Muth.

Chives, chives, chives!

I grew up in Wisconsin and lived pretty close to Underwood Creek, back when it was still a natural creek (or crick, as we would say).  One of my memories of springtime is the taste of wild chives.  We used to walk in the woods along that creek looking for crayfish and would munch on chives for a snack.

Maybe that was a little weird for a kid, but how many of us as adults love our sour cream and chives on baked potatoes?  You know what I am talking about.  Yum!

One of the chive pots on my front porch. This is a sister plant
to the ones that grow along the All Peoples Greenhouse.

Springtime is chive time.  Specifically, springtime is the time when chives bloom.  Different varieties of chive plants produce flowers from pale pink (almost white), to deep purple, to dusky blue (if you are growing garlic chives).  Leaves can vary in color from lime green to forest green, some are rounder and some more flat.  A fun thing to do with kids or adults is a taste test - pick a chive leaf from each different plant and see if you can taste any difference as you munch on the different leaves.

Most of the time, chive harvesting is done by cutting the leaves off of the plant with a scissors.  Cut them in bunches, leaving about an inch of leaf left at the base.  Wash and dry them, then snip away over your salads, soups and baked potatoes.  Chives are best when harvested right before you use them, and you can cut them all summer long. 

However, in early June, while it is in full bloom, before the plant produces little black seeds between the flower petals, the chive flower is delicious to eat!  The chive flower sits atop a stalk that is coarse and not good for snipping. We have all probably gotten that tough flower stem stuck in the scissors while trying to cut the leaves.  Harvest the flower by plucking the head off of the stem. Let the stem remain part of the plant and dry.  Gather a few fresh flowers in the morning to wash and break apart over your salad or sandwich.  If you aren't sure what the taste is like, sample one little bloom from the compound flower head.  Enjoy it's delightful crunch and burst of sweet, onion flavor.

To keep your chive plants healthy, leave some flowers on the plant and let them go to seed.  Most mature plants produce more flowers than are needed for seed or that can be used for salads.  Another fun thing to do with chive flowers is to make chive-infused vinegar.

Pop your clean chive flowers into small glass bottles or jars.  You can experiment
with the number of flowers needed for the flavor strength that you like.
I usually use 3 flowers for each small bottle.

My chive flowers are huge.  I try to pick smaller ones, and close them up
a bit to push them, stem first, into the bottles.  I use a chop stick to get them in there.
Don't worry if a few small pieces fall off.  I just toss them in with the flowers.

Use a funnel and carefully add distilled, white vinegar
to each bottle.  The flowers will float up a bit.  I bought bottles
with the nifty plastic tops that snap on for easy drizzles onto
salads and such, but you can use whatever bottles you have.
If you use recycled bottles (with or without the plastic toppers)
be sure to wash them super well so they don't have residual smells.

Screw the lids on tightly and set your vinegar in a cool,
dark place, like a cupboard.  After one day, you will already
see a change! Store in a cupboard, away from sunlight to retain
the pink color.  The chive flavor will grow stronger as it sits,
and after about 2 weeks it is ready to use. You can keep it for 2 years.

During the summer, you can freeze little bundles of snipped up chives to pop into your winter soups and stews.  The dry flower stalk is sturdy, and you can use it as a natural skewer.  I leave all the dead growth on my plants over the winter to protect them.  In the spring, before the leaves begin to sprout again, I remove most of the dead stuff and add it as a brown ingredient to my compost.  

What are your favorite things to do with chives?  Tell your stories and share your photos in the comments!

Submitted by Linda Muth