Using Garden Cilantro in Pico de Gallo Recipe

Joy, joy, joy!

I harvested about 8 sprigs of fresh cilantro today, about 3 – 4 inches long each. This is my first experience with growing cilantro (or even cooking with cilantro) so I was a bit surprised when my fingers smelled like citrus. Not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t citrus. Thought it might be more “herb-y”. You know what I mean, right?

I searched on www.allrecipes.com for a pico de gallo recipe and selected the first one, then made a few changes. Not that I know anything about making homemade pico de gallo, but the comments people were making sounded like good ones, so I went with it.

It was super-scrumptious! We threw together an impromptu dinner, grilling some hotdogs and heating up some of those awesome Grillin Beans from Bush (the Steakhouse Recipe is to die for, btw!) With fresh strawberries and tortilla chips, the pico de gallo was a perfect fit.

Here’s the Pico de Gallo we came up with, using our fresh cilantro picked from the garden less than 2 minutes before adding it:

• 7 Roma tomatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes or less
• 6 green onions, finely chopped using all parts of it (white and green)
• 1/2 large white onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• we substituted 2 small cans of diced green chilis for the fresh jalapeno the original recipe called for
• 1 fresh lime, squeezed juice into the mix (but could have used another lime)
• 7-8 sprigs cilantro, washed and finely chopped. We used the stems and all.
• 1 fresh avocado, diced (but could have used another avocado)
• salt and pepper to taste

Cut it all up, squeeze the lime juice in, and put it in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. Serve cold with chips, or whatever you’ve got hanging around that sounds good. There was a lot of juice in ours and you may want to drain some of it, if you don’t like that kind of thing.

It didn’t even occur to me to take a picture of it until after 3 of us polished off nearly a third of it! LOL. This recipe made about 5 cups, as close as I can guess.

I wonder what else I can make with the cilantro. There will be plenty to use throughout the summer. My hope is that eventually we’ll also have fresh tomatoes from our garden we can use instead of the store bought ones we used tonight.

Last 3 posts by Andrea Kalli

• I Hit The Tomato Motherload This Weekend - Topsy Turvy Update 9-5-2010 - September 7th, 2010
• My List of Gardening Books - Part 1 - September 3rd, 2010
• Events at Hudson Gardens in September 2010 - September 1st, 2010

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