I don't buy imported foods, at least to the best of my knowledge. I also do not buy any mass produced foods, from Smithfield or any other company. I certainly do not buy ANY mixes or prefab box foods. This country is just as deplorable in their food practices as any other. I have talked with many a farmer who left the USDA way of farm life because much filth is allowed while the inspector is sitting there. Bad things are alowed in feeds, the farm conditions are filthy, and people think eggs are fine because they are run through disinfectant water full of feces. The cracked ones sitting in that filth are sold to go in cake mixes. Do you really think workers at a factory farm care? They don't. They don't care if a child dies due to contamination. Read some of Joel Salatin's books. They are an eye opener, and due to his wonderful sense of humor, a delight to read. We vsited his farm in Virginia last fall. What a wonderful place! A well run cattle or chicken farm, where the animlas are allowed to be happy animals and are rotated on fresh pasture daily, DOES NOT SMELL. At all. The meat and milk taste fresh and sweet.The cheese is not the rubber stuff the stores sell. Better yet, make your own cheese from local fresh milk. It's a fun past time. So if the masses want cheap food, buy it, and eat it, I don't care. It only exists because they don't care enough about themselves and support it with their dollar. Make a nice meal for family and guests out of pure basic ingredients, and a roast or hamburgers from a local organic farmer. If you're a vegetarian, make a nice lasagna from cheeses you made youself and sauce you cooked from scratch and simmered all day. It's some effort but make enough for the freezer and you have easy meals for other days. Serve them a cake actually made from scratch and not a grocery store or box. They will rave about your meal, probably over eat a little, and ask to come back soon for a visit. Smithfield? Yuck!

I use coconut oil (kept at room temperature) instead of vegetable oil or shortening. Coconut oil is very stable at cool room temperatures and has an extremely long shelf-life, which is important to those of us who do home food storage. Coconut oil will easily store for up to 5-years, while vegetable oil lasts 6-months at room temperature (less time if stored where it gets a lot of light, or at temperatures above 70F), or 1-year if you refrigerate it. Refrigeration is suggested rather than freezing. Check the label of the container or call the help-line on the label for more information. Cooking oil is actually already rancid from the process it takes to make it and storage due to exposure to heat, light and oxygen during processing and home storage and use. Rancid oil doesn't have to smell rancid to be rancid. The exposure to oxygen did that long before it started to smell rancid. By the time it smells rancid, it's been that way for a long time. Cooking oil is oxidized to the point of being a body-damaging free radical. I haven't used vegetable oil or shortening in over 25 years. If you have a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, you can vacuum-seal oil after you open it to keep the oxygen out of the container. Heat, light and oxygen are the enemy of all foods. Eliminate those and they will last longer. (See the link below.) I store foods vacuum-sealed in FoodSaver bags in the freezer in order to prevent freezer burn, wasted food, and increase the storage time. Vacuum-sealing also helps maintain the quality of the stored foods. Once again, oxygen is the enemy of stored food, and that includes in the freezer. Freezing will slow down foods from going rancid, it just won't PREVENT it if there is oxygen present. Vacuum-sealing will prevent moisture in foods from migrating from the food to the air and creating ice crystals, unlike zip-lock bags in which you trap air in. A true vacuum can't be done using a drinking straw and drawing air out of the bag, but that's is an improvement over a bag full of air. If you have ice crystals accumulating in your foods (especially present in bags of bread or burger/hot dog buns), you don't have it properly stored. To improve the storage of foods in the freezer, it requires as tight a wrapping as possible to prevent as much air as possible being in contact with the food. -Grainlady

I always prep ahead for travel. But i agree that more than 24hrs for a marinade is too much. We prep in kits. I do all the prep in separate containers and bags and add together at the proper time. Having everything washed and sliced and ready to go saves headaches. I even prep and portion lunch meats and cheeses in foodsaver bags. Veggie snacks like carrots and celery sticks and some snap peas all washed and packed together to have with hummus or goat cheese. We travel with two coolers. One is packed with frozen meals and i freeze water bottles with iced tea and lemon to let thaw for a beverage and freeze gallon water jugs as the ice...freezing water in qrt zip-locks flat frozen is another way to keep frozen foods frozen. Those little camper fridges are small and when stuffed are not that efficient. I used to pack my unfrozen meats with a frozen water bottle in the bag when we traveled with our camper. We recently did 3 days in the truck and about to do it again. Tailgate chopping is not fun. So i have been prepping all morning. Even a charcuterie plate for the long ferry ride. I've chopped and prepped all the fixings for the tuna salad... olives, celery, apple, nuts, red pepper, artichoke hearts in the marinade...add the tuna on the road. Same mix for a small pasta salad and a potato salad. (feta and sundried tomatoes with the pasta, a bit of mustard in the potato salad). Zip-locks are great as they double as mixing bowls. And pack flat. Not sure if i would do the eggs ahead of time. The flavors might meld and not 'taste like home'. Though we just found our old favorite corn cake recipe and it is better if made 24 hrs ahead of time. Some egg batter mixes are best a day or two later.

Her recipe. It's a cooking, not canning recipe. A little more complicated than the one I throw together and I don't make 1 1/2 quarts at a time, but I don't know what it would hurt to freeze what's leftover - it might slightly affect taste, it wouldn't be a safety thing. If you were terribly disappointed you'd just know not to do it again. But I freeze spaghetti sauce all the time and no one complains. There are I think 7 or 8 quart bags of lasagna sauce with meat in my freezer right now from a cooking frenzy my SIL had last month, and her small freezer was full. I'm babysitting sauce until she wants it ;0) 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (1 large onion) 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves) 1 cup (10 ounces) tomato paste 1 cup cider vinegar 1 cup honey 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce 1 cup Dijon mustard 1/2 cup soy sauce 1 cup (8 ounces) hoisin sauce 2 tablespoons chili powder 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1/2 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes Heat the oil in a large saucepan over low heat, add the onions and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until the onions are translucent but not browned. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute. Add the tomato paste, vinegar, honey, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, chili powder, cumin and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Use immediately or pour into a container and refrigerate for several weeks.