Father's Day Chimichurri

My Father's Day plans involves kebabs, so I thought I'd try making chimichurri. My herbs are out of control, so this was a good way to make a small dent in my supply. From my recipe search, it appears that most chimichurris include parsley and oregano as the main ingredients. I decided to add a couple extra herbs since I had them.

Here's what I started with: approximately 2 cups of parsley, 3 tablespoons of marjoram (similar to oregano), maybe another 3 tablespoons of cilantro, a small handful of garlic chives, nearly an entire head of garlic (but my garlic from last year is pretty small).

I whizzed these ingredients up in the food processor, then added 1 cup of olive oil, about 4 tablespoons of white wine vinegar (what I had on hand), and salt and pepper. Normally chimichurri calls for red pepper flakes, but I left them out since my dad can't handle spicy food.

Since I strayed from the recipe, I'm not sure how legit my chimichurri is, but since it's basically herb pesto (without the nuts and cheese) I think you can play around with it a lot.

I think I better supply some breath mints...

First Garden Harvest of 2011!

My first garden harvest of 2011 goes to...drum roll please...Chives! Although this "harvest" is fairly insignificant, it sure is nice to have something fresh and homegrown this time of year.

Insecticidal Soap: A Cautionary Tale

I've had mealybug on some of my houseplants for a couple years now. Most of my plants seem to be immune, but a few have it pretty badly. I have a lot of succulents and they seem to get the worst case of mealybug (especially my jades and aloes). 

Aloe with mealybug

Unfortunately, even the "safe" houseplant insecticidal soaps are not safe on succulents. I once lost a gorgeous, enormous jade plant (that I had owned for over a decade) after spraying it with insecticidal soap. I guess I should have done more research before doing the spraying, but I assumed it was safe for all houseplants. Instead, that beautiful jade started dropping all of its leaves, then sections of the stem started to fall off...eventually the whole plant collapsed. The loss of this plant was really upsetting!

From that point on, I've used a different tactic to combat the mealybugs...I just let them be. The infestation hasn't spread to any other plants, and the infested plants seem to do just fine (despite looking a little furry). I put most of my houseplants outside over the summer which seems to knock their numbers down. However, they always comes back when I bring the plants inside for the winter.

Mealybugs on my potted rosemary. I just wash them off and eat it anyway!