Friday, October 4, 2013

Farm To Table: Mom's Freezer Corn



So I guess in all honesty this blog post should be called Farm (er's Market) To Table!  Living in Danville we can't have an actual garden, however, we've been taking full advantage of all of the local farmers markets.  My dream is to one day have a HUGE garden!  When Brian asks me what I want to grow my response is usually "EVERYTHING!".  Brian took me to the fair two weeks ago and at that moment I decided that I also needed to add a few chickens to my future farm.  Brian quickly gave me the talk that I've heard from my Dad so many times over the course of my life. The talk that sounds something like this:

"Now, Taryn, you know that they are live animals and you have to take care of them.  You're going to have to feed them every day and then you're going to have to clean up after them.  Are you sure that you want to do that?  You can't just forget to water them like you do the plants "

Sound familiar?  Needless to say the chickens are still up for debate around our household.  The garden, however, is a done deal.  This year has actually been a great learning experience.  It would be really unfortunate to have a huge garden with great produce and have no clue what to do with it!  So this year I've been practicing with produce from the farmers markets.  

When I was younger I can always remember my Mom "putting up sweet corn".  We would make a run for a truck full of sweet corn one day and the next day I would come home from school with corn silks covering the kitchen, at least five cutting boards going at once, a minimum three women (sometimes Dad was recruited to shuck the corn) running around in aprons, and lots of boiling water.  At that phase of life I went on about my own business.  Then I moved out and realized that the sweet corn fairy doesn't just deliver the corn to the freezer every year.   

As I've gotten older there have been tons of things that my Mom used to make that I would KILL for.  Strawberry freezer jam, pies, bread pudding, chicken and noodles, meatloaf, cube steak... the list goes on and on.  I wish that I would have spent every spare second hanging out with her in the kitchen and made very attempt to absorb every single trick she has up her sleeve!  Now I try to absorb everything through long phone calls. One of my very favorite things that she would make was her freezer corn!  

If you're thinking about making it then JUST DO IT!  It's easy, it's a relatively quick process, and it's so worth it in the middle of a snow storm to pull out a bag of delicious home grown sweet corn.

I promise I wouldn't fib to you... this process is so easy and the product is OH SO DELICIOUS!

Mom's Freezer Corn
Fresh Sweet Corn (plan for 2 ears per person)
Ziplock Bags

Bring water to a full boil.

Shuck sweet corn and remove as many of the silks as you can.  Mine had a few friends (worms) living at the ends so I had to chop the ends off. Line your corn up in piles for servings (2 ears per adult and 1 ear per child)


Drop one serving of corn into the boiling water.


Blanch/boil in water for 5 minutes rotating the corn once throughout.

Remove from boiling water and drop into bowl of ice water to cool (This only takes about 30 seconds).


Cut off the cob and put in a ziplock freezer back removing all of the air.




Pop it in the freezer.


(My assembly line was a one man operating since Brian was at work.  I would put my corn in the boiling water and during the 5 minutes of blanching I would cut the previous batch off the cob and bag it.  You can cut it off the cob and bag it in less than the five minutes it takes to boil the next batch.)

When you're ready to eat your corn just remove from the freezer and pop the bag into a bowl, open the top, and put in in the microwave just long enough to soften.  Then remove from the bag and finish microwaving. At this point add butter, salt, and pepper to taste. 




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