Game Day: Homemade Pico and Family Traditions

I hope you had a really nice, long weekend!  We had a really rainy holiday weekend in Indiana.  Our new trees and our grass was thankful for that.  We also got to kick off the college football season.  Although Notre Dame lost, we were proud of how they played.  It was awesome to see our new coach in action.  We loved cheering for our favorite team and eating all the game day food.

The kids were excited to put on all their ND gear and watch the game with us.  They weren't so sure that they wanted to watch a 4 hour game, but they were excited to celebrate any time we scored.  I made a nacho bar and cookies for a fun game day at home.

Do you ever make homemade pico??  

It is so simple and so much better than the store bought stuff.  I have a mix of thing we grew, things friends have grown and store bought things for this recipe.

Chop all the tomatoes.  Any kind will do.  I pour in all the seeds and juice.

Add in your favorite chopped onions - I like purple and yellow.  And add in 2 cloves of garlic.

Salt and pepper to taste.  Chop and add sweet peppers.  Green would be the prettiest, but I added yellow and orange because that's what I had on hand.

The juice and zest of one lime.

Stir it all together and let it sit for at least an hour in the fridge.  It tastes better when all the flavors blend together.  Our jalapenos were really hot so I chopped them and left them on the side.  If you like the heat or have more mild jalapenos, I would add them right into the pico.

We all built our own nacho plates and loved this meal!  Sour cream, guacamole, queso fresco cheese, taco cheese, black beans, sauteed sweet peppers and taco meat made a yummy nacho plate.  The kids opted for hard shelled tacos and everyone else did nachos.

I made some game day cookies of course!

The kids were hoping to get to do more touch down push ups with Leo instead of just one.  Hopefully, that'll happen in the games to come. 

Week 1 is in the books and we can't wait for next Saturday!  I have a whole game day Pinterest board of recipes that I'm hoping to try out for football games this season. Stay tuned!