We came home from a summer trip to find a forest of Italian flat-leaf parsley growing in my little herb garden. Joy! I've tried for years to grow parsley in pots. Starting them from seed rarely has much success, and the full plants don't replenish themselves very well, and soon I've used the whole thing. So this year, I threw a packet of seeds into a garden, and let them be. This is the year I've finally grown parsley, and plenty of it!

I made some chimichurri sauce with it, and we've been eating in on everything: steak, chicken, shrimp, salmon, grilled vegetables, rice with black beans.

Chimichurri is an Argentinian green sauce -- a finely chopped sauce of parsley, garlic, oregano, red wine vinegar (or lemon) and olive oil. It's easy to make and delicioso.

Raw garlic is a little too much for me, so I take a whole head of garlic and roast it on the grill. Roasting the garlic mellows the bite of garlic, and leaves a sweeter flavor.

I stick that in the food processor with a bunch of parsley -- about half a bunch from the grocery store, with some oregano. This week I substituted oregano for basil since I have a lot of that growing. Chop it up, add the juice from a whole lemon (or red wine vinegar), and then mix in the olive oil last. You need the lemon juice/vinegar to emulsify the olive oil into a creamy mixture.

Here's Williams Sonoma's recipe for chimichurri.

For a spicy chimichurri, try Tyler Florence's recipe with jalapeno.