Hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Now is a good time to look in the refrigerator for any lurking leftovers. Anything hanging around from Thanksgiving should definitely be thrown away. Now might also be a good time to check for any old condiments and bottled sauces.

Use the Refrigerator Storage Chart from the FDA Center of Food Safety as a guide for when to throw things away.

I hope that everyone is well on their way to preparing for Thanksgiving. If you are little behind this year, don't worry. You can still take a quick look around my blog and the Turkey for the Holidays site for ideas.

If you haven't bought a turkey, your best bet might be a fresh turkey. They are a little pricier, but you won't have to worry about it not being thawed out on time. If you want to buy a frozen turkey or if you haven't started to thaw your turkey yet, there is still hope. See the cold water method in the thawing portion of the Turkey for the Holidays website for the safest way to do it.

Due to the holiday, I will not be shopping this week and as a result will not be posting "What's in my Cart". Enjoy your leftovers this weekend. Here are a few recipes for the leftover turkey.

Turkey Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

6 cups reduced sodium chicken broth

1 cup diced potatoes

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup chopped onion

1 can (16-ounce) green beans

2 cups chopped, cooked turkey

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Instructions:
1. Combine broth, vegetables, and turkey in a large saucepan.
2. Simmer 30 minutes.
3. Season with pepper.

Leftover Turkey Casserole

Ingredients:

5-6 cups chopped cooked turkey
3 cups broth

1 pound macaroni, (raw)

1/2 pound reduced fat Velveeta cheese, cut in small cubes

3 small onions, finely chopped

2 cans cream of mushroom soup 98% fat free

2 cups cracker crumbs

1/2 teaspoon sage (optional)

1/8 teaspoon pepper

5 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients except hard-cooked eggs.
2. Mix very well.
3. Carefully stir in eggs.
4. Pour mixture into greased 9 x 13-inch dish.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Apple Turkey Salad

Ingredients:

8 ounces cooked turkey, cubed
2 cups diced celery

2 cups Granny Smith apples, unpeeled, cored, diced

1/4 cup raisins

2 Tablespoons reduced-calorie mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. In a large bowl, combine turkey, celery, apples and raisins.
2. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, nutmeg, and cinnamon
3. Fold into turkey mixture.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Serve on crisp lettuce leaves and garnish with grated Cheddar cheese, if desired.

If you are making a turkey for Thanksgiving, now is the time to start thawing. Remember, it takes 24 hours for every 5 pounds of turkey. If you have a 20 pound bird, the last day to start thawing would be Saturday. It is ok to start thawing the turkey up to two days ahead of the schedule. A turkey will remain good in the refrigerator for about 2 days even after it is fully thawed.

Remember, the safest way to thaw the turkey is in the refrigerator. Place the turkey with the wrapping on in a pan at the lowest point in the refrigerator. This will keep the turkey intact and prevent the juices from getting on other food.

Thinking about buying local foods for your holiday feast but not sure where to get them in Illinois this time of year? Check out the Chicago's Green City Market. They have an indoor winter market for the months of November and December open every Wednesday and Saturday. The Green City Market is a great place to meet growers and producers of locally grown food. Items sold include fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, herbs, and baked goods.

This week there are plenty of advertised specials storewide to help you make that perfect holiday meal. These specials have also hit the produce department, so don't be afraid to pick up fresh produce for that special event. This week there are sales on cranberries, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, sweet potatoes, carrots, oranges, and pineapple. There are alsomaybesales at your store on green beans, squash, grapefruit, pears, grape tomatoes, and potatoes.

The sales have also been set for turkey. They start as low as $.49/lb. However, you may need to use the stores card to get the price or use a coupon. Check the flier to find out more information. Forget your coupon at home? Don't be afraid to ask at the store for a copy of their flier. Many stores have extra copies on hand.

Have fun shopping!

One of the Thanksgiving favorites is the sweet potato. However, you often see recipes that call for yams. Thus the question, sweet potato or yam? If you go to the grocery store you might see some of each. However, if you look closely at the fine print, you will notice that the yam is also labeled as a sweet potato because that is actually what it is. Any yam sold in this country (outside of specialty Asian or Caribbean markets), is a sweet potato.

Sweet potatoes started to be called yams due to their similarity in looks. Even though it was a sweet potato, the name yam stuck. There are seven varieties of sweet potato. Four of these varieties, Beauregard, Covington, Garnet, and Jewel, are most often labeled as yams.

There is a lot of information in the horticultural world about the differences between sweet potatoes and yams. Turns out that sweet potatoes are not even potatoes. For more information about the differences, here is an informative article by colleague Jennifer Schulz Nelson.

Nutritionally sweet potatoes are great. They provide a good source of complex carbohydrates (the carbohydrates that raise your blood sugar slowly), fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, and protein. Enjoy your sweet potatoes this holiday season. Here are two recipes to try.

Sweet Potato and Cranberries

Ingredients:

2 - 15.5-ounce cans of sweet potatoes, drained

1 1/2 cups canned cranberry sauce

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2 Tablespoons margarine

1/4 cup chopped nuts

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Slice potatoes an arrange slices in a baking dish.
3. In a saucepan, combine cranberry sauce, water and brown sugar. Simmer, uncovered for about 5 minutes.
4. Add margarine to the cranberry sauce and stir until melted. Pour over sliced potatoes. Top with nuts.
5. Bake for 20 minutes or until hot.

Yam and Apple Casserole

Ingredients:

6 - 8 yams

6 - 8 cooking apples

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups boiling water

1/2 cup margarine

Cinnamon, to taste

Instructions:
1. Slice yams.
2. Peel apples and slice.
3. Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in saucepan.
4. Add water and margarine.
5. Stir over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil.
6. Grease 2 quart casserole dish.
7. Layer yams and apples in casserole dish.
8. Pour sauce over yams and apples.
9. Sprinkle top with cinnamon to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Interested in trying something new for Thanksgiving? Maybe you are cooking Thanksgiving for the first time. Here are a few recipes to add to your collection whether you are a new cook or very experienced.

Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon margarine

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups chicken or turkey broth, salt reduced

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

6 cups corn bread crumbs

Instructions:
1. Melt margarine in large pot.
2. Add celery and onion.
3. Cook over medium heat until partially cooked.
4. Add broth to vegetables.
5. Cook for 5 minutes.
6. Add eggs, poultry seasoning, and corn bread crumbs to broth and mix.
7. Bake in 1-1/2 quart casserole dish at 325 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.

Note: It is safest to bake stuffing separately from Turkey.

Baked Squash and Apples

Ingredients:

2 acorn squash

1 apple, chopped

1/3 cup raisins

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2 Tablespoons soft margarine, melted

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Wash squash. Cut squash in half lengthwise. Scrape out seeds.
3. Place squash halves cut side down on a cookie sheet or in a baking pan. Bake for 25 minutes.
4. Mix the remaining ingredients.
5. Turn the squash cut side up. Fill squash with apple mixture. Bake 20 minutes longer or until squash is soft.

No Bake Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

1 package instant vanilla pudding, sugar free

1 cup skim milk

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 graham cracker pie crust

Instructions:
1. Mix instant pudding with milk.
2. Shake or stir until pudding is set.
3. Stir in pumpkin, sugar and pumpkin pie spice until well blended.
4. Pour into graham cracker pie crust.
5. Refrigerate until serving time.

It is hard to believe that we are two weeks away from Thanksgiving. It reminds me of what happened a few years ago when I decided that I was going to cook Thanksgiving for my family.

Each year we celebrate Thanksgiving by my mother's house in Wisconsin. Usually everyone brings something and my mom makes the turkey. Well this particular year, I decided that I wanted to try some new recipes. So, I told everyone to just show up, do not worry, I was going to cook everything. Things were going good, I had all my recipes and my mom bought most of the ingredients a week before (since I was traveling from Illinois). Then the phone rang, it was my mom. "Hi, I bought the sausage for the stuffing last week, do you think it is still good. It kind of smells funny". Knowing food safety, I knew it was no longer any good. Fresh raw sausage is only good for about 1 to 2 days. So, I told her to throw it out and we can get some the day before. No big deal. Everything was good.

We arrived home the night before Thanksgiving. It is always nice to see the family. After some friendly greetings, my mother told me that we might have a slight problem with the turkey. She had it in the refrigerator thawing for the past two days, but it still seemed really frozen. Would it be ready to cook? I checked it and it did seem really really frozen. So, we decided that we would get up early and start thawing it in cool water in the sink, changing the water every 30 minutes of course. That method seemed to work pretty well, so I started to cook the turkey on schedule. Throughout the morning I checked the temperature. I notice that it wasn't moving very much. The skin was getting pretty brown, so I tented aluminum foil over the turkey to prevent it from getting too brown. I started all the side dishes, things were going great. However, 30 minutes from meal time the temperature reading on the turkey was still only around 120 degrees. This was not good.

Well, about an hour and a half after we were originally supposed to eat, the turkey was finally done. The side dishes had already been pretty much eaten, and no one really cared about the turkey anymore. Turns out, the turkey was still frozen on the inside and it needed extra time to cook (or thaw). It still tasted really good, or so I thought. It didn't matter though; it was an hour and a half late. People start to turn on your ideas when they are hungry. Needless to say, I have been banned from making Thanksgiving.

Moral of the story, make sure you thaw your turkey if you don't want it to take longer to cook. Thawing takes longer than you think. Allow about 24 hours of defrost time for every 5 pounds of turkey. Example: a 20 pound turkey will take 4 to 5 days to thaw.

For more ways to ensure that you have a food safe Thanksgiving, see Turkey for the Holidays. It can help make your meal a success.

Watch for more Thanksgiving related recipes and tips in the next few weeks. Oh, and don't worry. My family did agree that the food was good; they just have to tease me since I am the youngest of the four siblings. No matter how old you are, you will always be the youngest.

This week apples, potatoes, onions, and pears are still good buys. There are also good sales on avocado and oranges. I encourage you to check the sale paper for the store you shop at because there are a lot of other items on sale but it varies from store to store.

Since we are about two weeks away from Thanksgiving, you may already be shopping for some of your Thanksgiving items. There are good sales on items for baking and for favorite Thanksgiving side dishes. However, turkeys have not been widely advertised. A few stores have advertised specials. The best I have seen so far is $.69/lb. Check for in store specials or maybe hold off until next week.

Every night when I get home, my one year old stands in the middle of the kitchen crying until I get food on the table. She is hungry and she can't wait to eat. So, if I don't have a plan for dinner that can be made in about 15-30 minutes (I can usually distract her with toys for that long), it can make for some uncomfortable moments.

As a result, I have vowed to start cooking more food ahead of time so all I have to do is reheat or cut down the preparation time. This weekend I was able to follow my own advice and make some food in advance. I made twice the amount of food for the meal we ate on Saturday so we could have the leftovers. On Sunday I cooked some chicken so I could use it to make several dishes throughout the week.

I am so excited to have some items ready to put into meals for this week. I can tell you that last night I had dinner on the table in 15 minutes and dinner time was so easy.

Here are some tips for cooking ahead of time to make your dinners as easy as mine.

* Cook twice or triple the amount needed for one meal. Reheat leftovers (to 165 degrees) for an easy dinner or take some for your lunch at work.

* Pre cook meat like ground beef, chicken, or pork. Use meats to make a variety of dishes throughout the week. Make sure any dish with precooked meat is heated to 165 degrees.

* Make a large batch of soup or stew. Refrigerate enough for another meal and freeze the rest for meals in upcoming weeks.

* On the weekend, plan out what to serve each night for the upcoming week and grocery shop according to your plan. It saves time in thinking about what to make and you will be sure to have the ingredients.

* Preassemble a casserole or baked dish (like lasagna). Refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Since we are cooking and storing food to use later, we need to keep in mind some food safety tips. Leftovers are only good in the refrigerator for a few days and in the freezer for a few months. Check out the link from the Food Safety division of the Food and Drug Administration on How Long to Store Food. Also here are some tips on How to Properly Chill your food

Depending on where you shop this week, there is a lot of variability for what is on sale. However, some good buys at most stores are potatoes, onions, apples, and tomatoes. Also watch for sales on pears, asparagus, eggplant, squash, zucchini, avocado, and green peppers. Oranges are also starting to become a good buy.

If you haven't had a chance to get your fall favorites, make sure to stock up now. They are starting to disappear from the stores. A sign that the snow is coming!