Pico Pico Pico

Its that time of year for our annual Pico De Gallo marathon. Every August/ September Timmy and I sit down and make a bucket (and I mean literally bucket) of Pico to share with all of our family. This year though we may have gotten a bit overzealous with the veggies and literally had to use a Rubbermaid storage bin to mix it all in. But honestly it worked out great so I think we will be using it from now on. Not to mention that everything I put in that bin for the next few weeks is going to smell awesome! We are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where people will actually put vegetables out to the curb for sale, so all you have to do is swing by and pay on good faith. It is one of the areas I am most proud of myself. Not to toot my own horn—but I am pretty honest when it comes to these stands. I just can’t see ripping some poor grandma off for 50 cents. This is not to say that if they are asking ridiculous prices I won’t maximize my choices but that’s neither here nor there. Anyhoo- there were a few ingredients that we were not able to get from the neighbors so the girls and I hit the local farmer’s market. Argh… it always seems so appealing and awesome until I get there and have to try and manage through the crowd with two excitable girls who want to touch everything and meet every single overdressed and adorable puppy. Which by the way said pups are usually accompanied by an uptight owner who doesn’t like children- hence the pampered pup. So after trying to keep my girls on their “leash” I finally got through the super cramped parking lot and gathered all the things I still needed for our recipe. There was also a super cute apple orchard vendor that gave us all free apples to snack on during our stay. Um yum! (the apples and the 20 something hot body. Now I get why my mother was such a creeper when I was young hahaha). This year we decided to make refrigerator pickles in addition to the Pico (some people call them freezer pickles.  Tomato/ tomato…  although this example doesn’t really work unless you are saying it out loud whoops!). My girlfriend at work brought some in to try that were not only sweet little pickles but they were dill-y at the same time. Can you say heaven!?! She assured me that even I could make them and so we are going to give it a go. The art about making all the fresh yummies is the ginormous amount of preparation. We are talking hours here people. Argh- is it worth it? Probably not. The whole instant gratification thing is definitely not happening right now. But my family bonded… and I think that may be a million times more important that me feeling immediate satiation. The girls both wanted to help cut the veggies which I was okay with as long as Timmy was there to watch them. I had no interest in witnessing them cutting off a finger so I worked on washing pickles while they took their little knives and mangled the tomatoes. Those are the times you never forget. I love my life.

PS- my pickles turned out awesome!!!