With the holiday season in full swing, cooks are manning their recipe arsenals to make sure this season's meals and baked goods are ones to remember. To celebrate the season and remind at-home chefs and bakers about food borne illness, food safety leader National Pasteurized Eggs, (www.SafeEggs.com) makers of Davidson's Pasteurized Safest Choice Shell Eggs, has launched a contest for the best holiday recipes.

The Davidson's Safest Choice "Safest Recipes" contest will run through Dec. 31, 2009. Recipe submissions will be accepted from any category and the only requirements are that recipes must be an original and include eggs as an ingredient. Entries can be submitted online only at http://www.SafeEggs.com/contest.

The contest winner will receive a state-of-the-art home security system with installation, valued at $1,000. Three second place winners will receive a set of high-end, safety cookware, valued at $500 and five third place winners will receive a child-friendly cell phone, valued at $200 each. Winning recipes also will be acknowledged on www.SafeEggs.com, the company's web site. Contest winners will be announced in January 2010.

"The holidays are a great time for cooking and sharing recipes, but along with this comes some food safety risks such as bacterial cross-contamination in the kitchen," said Greg West, president of NPE. "This holiday recipe contest is a fun way to encourage at-home cooks to be food safety conscious, and take steps to reduce the chance of food-borne illness."

Davidson's Safest Choice Pasteurized Shell Eggs are processed using a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, patented pasteurization process recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to inactivate the Salmonella and avian influenza virus. They are sold at food safety conscious retailers around the country such as Jewel, Publix, Giant Eagle, Harris Teeter, Piggly Wiggly, Bristol Farms and more. Visit www.safeeggs.com for retail locations throughout the country.

SOURCE National Pasteurized Eggs