[upbeat folk music]
- So I'm having some folks out for supper tonight,
and I thought since the weather is so hot
and it's summertime and it's wonderful,
there is nothing better than lemonade: nice, cold lemonade.
I had some strawberries in the garden so I thought,
"Why not make it a strawberry lemonade?"
[gentle folksy music]
So I'm gonna juice four lemons.
And that smells amazing.
Okay, so once you've got the lemons there,
I'm just gonna use the back of my spoon
and push on some of the lemon zest
or the meat of the lemon, and just push all that through
so I can get all of the liquid out of the solid,
and put this right into your Cuisinart.
Into here, I'm gonna add my honey first,
and this is the honey we picked up in Eau Claire.
And I'm using honey instead of sugar
because I have great local honey.
Let me pulse this up.
Whoa!
If you didn't want to do it in a food processor,
you could just heat up some water,
about two, four cups of water,
and then dissolve the honey into it,
but I find it's just as easy to do it in a mixer.
Next, I'm gonna do my strawberries.
I've probably got about one and a half pounds.
And this year, I got to 'em
before the bunnies and the birds,
so I'm very excited.
All righty.
That looks like it's enough,
and I'm gonna keep some of these just to eat.
And two cups of water is gonna go in here,
and I hope it doesn't leak all over the table.
Maybe I'll just add that much for now.
[food processor whirring]
And now it's leaking all over the table,
so I'm gonna get it in here.
Nobody said that cooking, you can't get messy.
All right, I'm gonna let that sit in the fridge and chill
and kind of meld the flavors together,
and then I'll pour it in a big old serving bowl
for the kids today and add lots of ice,
and dilute it down with some water.
I'm gonna clean up this mess that I made
and then we're gonna make some chimichurra for our steaks.
Chance and I love to have folks out to the farm
in the summertime, so what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna turn all of my herbs from my garden
and Nick's green garlic into a chimichurra.
A chimichurra is kind of like a pesto, but with a pesto,
like if you're doing a basil pesto, you pulverize that.
You want it to be more of a sauce,
so you're pulverizing the basil and the garlic,
and the olive oil, and the cheese,
and everything that comes together with a pesto.
This, I wanted to be more of a texture,
so I'm just gonna chop all those herbs fine,
or give them a rough chop, throw 'em together,
and that's gonna top over my steak.
So I'm just using the herbs that I had in my garden.
I've got some parsley, some Italian parsley here,
little bit of oregano, some chives,
and then I have Nick's green garlic.
If you're not familiar with green garlic,
it's the garlic that comes up in the spring.
They're gonna smell like garlic, they're gonna taste like garlic,
but they just don't have that bulb.
I'm actually gonna save some of these
and have Chance grill 'em up so we can taste
to see how they taste when they're grilled,
but I'm gonna use three stalks of the green garlic
in my recipe for my chimichurra.
I'll slice these up,
and it already smells like garlic in here, which I love.
And into my bowl.
And now next, I'm gonna do some of these chives.
And a little dab will do you with this chimichurri
because it is very strong.
And now for some parsley.
Right in there.
And it smells so fresh.
I'm taking the oregano leaves off of the stems.
The stems aren't gonna add much to our recipe,
but the leaves will be perfect.
And I think that's good.
A little salt and pepper.
This chimichurra recipe can change
throughout your season in your garden.
You can change swapping different herbs that you have.
You could even put in some fresh mint to add a brightness to it.
That would be really delicious.
A little bit of salt.
I'm putting in a little bit of,
a lotta bit of red pepper; I love spice.
And then some red wine vinegar for my acid.
And then I'll just stir in some of my olive oil.
I suppose you could do this in a mixer, Cuisinart,
if you want it to be chopped a little bit finer,
but I like the crunchiness of the herbs the way it is.
I'm gonna stick this in the fridge
and let the flavors come together.
I like to make this an hour ahead of time,
half an hour if you've got time,
and let all those flavors kind of marry together,
and then it'll be a great topping for our steaks.
I'm gonna go get the table ready for the party,
and I'll see you out there.
[upbeat folk music]
At the peak of summer, there's nothing better
than the bright taste of a fresh chimichurra,
served with grilled steaks.
The kid in all of us will love the sweetness
of the strawberry honey lemonade.
Potato salad and coleslaw are classic sides
for any backyard barbecue.
Well, I hope this has inspired you
to invite some local friends out for some local food.
And I hope you'll gather with us next time,
- In unison: Around the Farm Table!
- I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
Great job, guys; thanks for coming over.
[people chatting] Thanks for coming over.
Thank you! - You're welcome, Inga!
[upbeat folk music]