Trading Up Downtown

Happy Halloween, blog friends!

I hope you have big plans for tonight! You know, dressing up in a fun costume, running around the neighborhood trick-or-treating, and eating ridiculous amounts of candy? Ok, maybe some of us are too old for that, but doesn’t that sound like a fun night out?

Trading Up Downtown Giveaway

Instead of risking eating too much candy or getting egged by teenagers, how about a Halloween-inspired giveaway? Here’s your chance to win a set of Pumpkin Patch Spreaders and a some adorable Halloween napkins!

All you have to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment on this post about your plans for Halloween. I’ll randomly pick a winner in the morning.

Good luck!

Is it too early to start thinking about Thanksgiving? I don’t think so. I mean, it’s exactly one month from today. Better start getting your Turkey Day menu together!

My friends at Taste of Home “traded-up” a bunch of their favorite Thanksgiving Day side dishes and desserts to create a more slimmed-down (and typically more nutritious) version that family and friends will still love. Check out this lower-calorie recipe for the Best-Ever Sweet Potato Pie.

Best-Ever Sweet Potato Pie

Prep: 25 min.

Bake: 1 hour 15 min.

Ingredients:

• 1 extra-servings-size graham cracker crust (9 ounces)
• 1/4 cup All Whites Liquid Egg Whites (NuVal score: 26)
• 1-1/2 cups mashed sweet potatoes (NuVal score: 96)
• 1-1/4 cups Garelick Farms Over the Moon Fat Free Milk, Milk (NuVal score: 91)
• 3 Eggland’s Best eggs (NuVal score: 44)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground mace

Directions:

1. Brush crust with egg white.
2. Bake at 400° for 6-8 minutes.
3. Cool on a wire rack. Reduce heat to 350°.
4. In a large bowl, beat the remaining ingredients until blended. Pour into crust.
5.  Bake for 70-80 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

Makes 10 Servings

1. Cool on a wire rack.
2.  Refrigerate leftovers.

Trading Up Downtown Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who entered this week’s giveaway! Here’s your winner: 38!

Congrats, Whitney! Please email me at thaupert@nuval.com with your full name and mailing address to claim your prize.

Scoring items on sale at the grocery store is one of my favorite things, especially when it’s a product that I love and use often. Getting these deals slims my grocery bill quite a bit, but only if those purchases don’t go to waste. If they do, I’m just wasting money!

Here are some helpful guidelines from AllYou.com to help keep items as delicious and fresh as they were on the day you bought them.

Keep your pantry items…

• Bottled salad dressing (unopened): 1 year
• Bread: 5-7 days
• Canned goods: 1 year
• Cereal (unopened): 1 year
• Jams, jellies, honey, syrup (unopened): 1 year
• Peanut butter: 6 months
• Pasta: 2 years
• White rice: 1 year

Keep your frozen food…

• Beef steaks: 6-12 months
• Bread: Up to 1 year
• Butter: 6-9 months
• Fish: 2-6 months
• Ground meat: 3-4 months
• Lunch meat: 1-2 months
• Produce: Up to 1 year
• Whole poultry: 1 year