I know it’s spring in most of the country, but we’re on the verge of summer in Texas. And once it’s summer, Texans eat pico de gallo by the 10-gallon hat full; we love it!

Although, we usually shorten the name to pico, no de gallo necessary!

What is pico, exactly?

The loosest definition is an uncooked, coarsely chopped salsa-like condiment that includes tomatoes, onion, cilantro and then anything else your heart desires.

Which means you can put anything in a pico and call it pico!

Ain’t it great?

I made this assortment last summer:

Here’s what I put in mine:

MUST HAVES:

* Chopped homegrown/farmer’s market tomatoes (this is the key ingredient. you can use store bought, but only the uninitiated will eat it)

* Chopped sweet Vidalia Onions

* Cilantro

* Fresh lime juice from the limes off my tree. Fancy!

* Jalapenos. If you want less heat, seed those fire-pokers first.

FOR FUN:

* Chopped mango

* Chopped avocado

* Chopped anything else you gotta hankerin’ for.

Tomatoes take up approximately 2/3rds of my pico-makin’ portions. The other 1/3 is made up of the rest of the stuff.

There are no rules.

Start choppin’ your ingredients and see where you end up.

I store the fresh pico overnight in a leak-proof container, so that I can flip it upside down at least once during the process, so the tomato juice marries with everything else I’ve thrown in.

Pico makes a great hostess gift if you’re headed to a BBQ (and who isn’t?!).

It’s a fun “thanks for taking care of the dog while we were on vacay” gift.

Heck, it’s a great gift to yourself to accompany that ice cold beer and tortilla chips after a long day of what-evering.

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My fav way to present pico is in a Ball canning jar.

But you could put it in whatever you wanted.

Now, who’s ready for summer eatin’?