Pico de Gallo

By Kelly Bogard

Once again, I was blessed by the bounty of a Texas farmer. I came to work a while back and found a beautiful box of vine-ripened tomatoes from the Rio Grande Valley on my desk. They were a brilliant, shiny red and perfectly plump.

Texas really did win the vegetable jackpot this year. It rained at the right times and the extreme heat stayed away for most of the summer. But, as with anything else, all good things must come to an end. The summer plants are just about spent and no longer producing.

What better way to send out summer than with a recipe made entirely of veggies from the Lone Star State?

For Pico de Gallo, you will need…
4 medium-sized tomatoes
3 jalapeno peppers
1 yellow onion
1 bunch cilantro
Juice of 1 to 2 limes
1 tsp. garlic salt

This recipe is super quick and easy. The difficult part is waiting for the veggies to get juicy and the flavors to combine before diving in and eating the whole bowl.

Wash and dry all of your vegetables to prepare them for chopping. Then, dice the tomatoes into small chunks and place them in a large mixing bowl.

Do the same with the onion and jalapenos, trying to keep the pieces all about the same size so you get just the right amount of each one in a bite.

After adding the onion and jalapenos to the bowl with the tomatoes, sprinkle on the garlic salt. Stir to combine.

Grab a handful of the cilantro and rough chop it, trying to remove as much of the stem as possible. Next, add it to the other veggies. Add the lime juice to taste and stir again. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour prior to serving. This, of course, is the hardest step, but I know you can handle it.

It is truly amazing what you can do with fresh fruits and vegetables. I’m so thankful to all of the gardeners and farmers who shared their bounty with me this summer. I can’t wait to see what they come up with this fall and winter. Keep sending those recipes, too. I love to try out new ones. From all of us at Texas Table Top, enjoy!

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