Summer Fruit Salsa & Homemade Cinnamon Chips

Recipe and Photo Courtesy Samantha Lee

Fruit Salsa

half of a fresh pineapple, coarsely chopped
one ripe mango, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp minced cilantro (don't be afraid of it - just embrace it)

Combine all three ingredients in a bowl one hour before serving time to let juices flow and flavors combine.

Cinnamon Chips

1/2 stick melted butter
4-8 6 inch flour tortillas (for this photo I used whole wheat)
cinnamon sugar (combine cinnamon to sugar at a 1-2 part ratio)

Brush melted butter on one side of flour tortilla. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Place on a cookie sheet and cut into triangles with a pizza cutter. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and bubbly. Let cool, then remove with spatula.

Grilled Peaches

There is no specific amounts to this....you just do it and it's yummy!

You need one peach per person. This ensures that each person gets two halves because one is not enough. You want the peaches to be ripe enough that when you cut in half you can remove the seed.

Preheat grill. Cut peaches in half and pit.

In a microwave safe bowl mix butter and brown sugar. Melt and stir until it makes a liquidy mixture.

Please peaches face down on grill and brush with brown sugar butter mixture. Cook for 3-4 minutes. Turn and brush peaches again and fill the pit hole with the mixture.

Cook until the skins start to come off. Skins could start to look dark brown.

Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

The Perfect Fresh Pineapple

Credit this gem to Jan Schindler

When buying a fresh pineapple reach into the green stem part and pull a leaf. If it comes to easy it's over ripe, to hard under ripe. You can it to have a little tug and then come out.

Notice the bottom of your pineapple always gets over ripe first, try this.
The next trick is when you get it home turn it upside down on your counter. You can lean it against a wall or container. This way all the sugary juices run to the top of the pineapple spreading out the yummy juices for a more uniform ripeness.

Trust me! This works and you'll save lots of your pineapple that may have gone bad before you cut into it.