Saturday, May 14th is the National Association of Letter Carrier’s ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ Food Drive–a perfect reason to purge your pantry.

Wake up early. Have a protein-packed breakfast. Take a bag to the spot in the house you keep food. Be ruthless. You bought 10 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on sale. Can you donate one or two? Thought you were going to make that cake but didn’t? Donate the mix. On a diet? Donate the foods you’re now avoiding.

PURGING is a WIN-WIN situation. You get rid of things that are cluttering your home and others get things they truly need. In this case–food.

My bag is filled and we’ll be putting it on our doorstep a few hours before the mail carrier arrives. My bag has pasta, canned vegetables, and baby food in it. What will you put in YOUR bag?

How many times have you eaten turkey in the past 72 hours?

I don’t cook the turkey but for the past bunch of years my cousin hands me the turkey carcass at the end of the night. I can pick a good two pounds of meat off the bones so when I’m looking to do something creative to it, I turn to the Food Network website.

If you still have some leftovers and need a new recipe, check out Food Network’s Thanksgiving Leftovers page. My personal favorite use of turkey leftovers is Rachael Ray’s Turkey Corn Chili recipe. Try it over brown rice for a change of pace from the usual flavors of Thanksgiving.

Let’s make sure none of those leftovers are left to languish in the back of the fridge. Clear containers are best–no tin foil surprises at the end of the week.

Get ready to purge your fridge anyway…Hannukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa are just a few weeks away.

Gobble, gobble…

In an attempt to bring you correct information, I have scoured the Internet looking for the correct date for National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. Some websites say it’s November 14th or 15th and some say the holiday was declared to be the third Wednesday in November by the Whirlpool Corporation (which would make it the 18th this year).