A great little Salsa, and other easy snacks

First a quick report on the buffalo burgers. They were awesome. We had friends over and one of them had developed a dislike for buffalo because they always found it dry. These burgers were really moist and I had overcooked them a smidge (there was wine involved). The other burgers I made earlier in the summer with part extra lean ground beef and chicken were also really moist. I'm convinced it is the fresh bread crumbs! I freeze the ends of bread and then put them through the food processor when I need bread crumbs. This way I never have a box of bread crumbs going stale in my cupboard. Don't have a food processor? Your coffee grinder will work too, even a blender will do. You can even just crumble it with your fingers!

Now on to snacks. You know I like a low fat, low sodium snack. And when your going to be enjoying a cocktail or two, it's good to get some food in your belly. Here is the quickest salsa I know. And I don't even like pineapple but this stuff is delicious!

• 1/2 - 3/4 of a pineapple, I get the already cleaned stuff in the produce section.
• 1 red pepper
• 4 green onions (scallions)
• a bunch of cilantro (can you really have too much?!)
• 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar or cider vinegar
• pinch of brown sugar
• squirt of lime juice (about 2 tbsp or 1 fresh squeezed)
• 1 tsp chipotle powder or 1 chipotle pepper from a can

Chop the pineapple and red pepper into small pieces, about 1/4 inch chunks. Chop up the cilantro. Add in the rest, mix and let sit for a couple of hours before serving. Yum!

Now how about some other quick snacks. We all know how much I like to stuff things. Sometimes this is too time consuming for a crowd. But I had some "red hots" peppers so I made a filling with light herb and garlic cream cheese and grated cheddar. With a hot pepper, it is important to not only get all the seeds out but to also get out the white pithe.
















Like I said, this can be time consuming. But since there was only 4 of us, I did 8 red hots, some tomatoes and some mushrooms. Now the mushrooms can be a quick stuffer. Just wash, gently rock the stem back and forth to remove them. Then you can spoon in stuffing mix of any sort. Or if you want a really quick and tasty snack, add blue cheese. Broil, bake or grill those puppies up and you have a great snack!