Pico De Gallo : the recipe

It’s that beautiful time of year when I’m abruptly overwhelmed with the baskets and baskets of fresh garden vegetables filling my counter space in the kitchen. I can only eat so many cucumbers every day! And the tomatoes! The glorious garden tomatoes that have the most predictable sense of humor. Stay green, stay green, stay green, sttayyyyyy green, turn slightly yellow to get everyone excited, annndddddd NOW, GO! everyone turn red! Quick, all fifty million of you, RIGHT NOW! It’s terribly presumptuous of them.

But there are maybe only six things I love more in life than a fresh garden tomato, so just to clarify, I’m not complaining. I’m just swimming in garden vegetables and trying my hardest to keep up with them, that’s all.

This is the fourth year we have had a garden, and not to be haughty but we are growing ever better at our recipes! String beans, for example: boiled to perfection and then tossed in a perfect mixture of olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt. Corn on the cob: soaked in salted water and then grilled. Green peppers: cut up cold and dipped in ranch, duh. But there is a special place in heaven for the tomatoes, jalapenos and onions: mama's pico de gallo!

I've been making it in loads this past week, so much so that my fingertips are all dried up, like coarse little prunes. It's dreadful.

Anyway. I posted the recipe back when I first started making it, and like anything we do, it has only gotten better with experience. Here is the recipe in its exactness but let's remember that with recipes, you have to play with it until it's perfect for you. 



6 tomatoes, diced and cubed
1/2 red onion
2 jalapenos, finely chopped
1/3 c. chopped cilantro
1 lime
salt and pepper to taste 

Combine all ingredients, fresh squeeze lime, marinate in the refrigerator for at least one hour prior to serving.


Here's what I have found in my practice-to-perfection of this recipe:

Always de-gut and de-seed your tomatoes. Trust me, you don't want those juicy innards in the pico!

While red onions are for sure my favorite in this recipe, white onions work well also.

I'm a pansy with heat, so It's more like 1 jalapeno for me.

I alwayyysss add more than 1/3 cup cilantro. And I make sure to throw in a few chunkier leafs. Cilantro is very much a "you either love it or you hate it" kind of thing, like oatmeal, poodles and Kristen Stewart. As for me, I love Cilantro. I could eat in on pretty  much everything and I can never have too much.

And you don't have to have a food processor to make this, which I love.  I own a Vidalia chop wand and a manual food chopper but I don't love to use either of them. I like to make my bread without a bread-maker and my pico without a food processor. (I'm either dedicated or crazy, you decide.)

Also, for you locals, the best tortilla chips in all the land are found at Macey's. And they come in a 2 pound bag! I don't know about you but I take my chips and salsa eating very seriously, so a 2 pound bag is pretty dang perfect. 

Well so there you go. While I love my pico, I do have enough tomatoes that I sadly might have to learn how to can this year. I've worked very hard to avoid the canning club for as long as possible but, you know. There's only so much fresh garden food you can waste before you realize that you're only hurting yourself.