Chimichurri is pretty much an Argentinian pesto, but made with parsley. But guess what? My parsley’s all dead. Don’t know how that happened, but we had plenty of cilantro, so we improvised. The following recipe is not for the chimichurri purists, but is was based on the real thing. And you know what? It was good.

1 cup cilantro leaves, firmly packed and thick stems removed

4 garlic cloves

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 T red wine vinegar

1 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

pinch of crushed red pepper

1. Add cilantro and garlic to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse several times until finely chopped. (Can be finely chopped by hand if you don’t have a food processor, but you should get one, they change your life.)

2. Add the vinegar, salt, black and red pepper. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until everything is completely combined.

We just covered some pork chops with the chimichurri and threw them on the grill and they were great!

Maybe if I don’t kill the parsley next summer, we can try the real thing!