Why we need a freezer...
July 8, 2009
When we had my parents over for the 4th of July, we had shrimp, clams, portabella mushrooms, potato salad, bean salad (that they brought) and grilled corn. By the time we got to eating the corn, everyone was stuffed (and forget the pound cake that we had for dessert...that just wasn't happening.) Luckily we had only grilled a few ears--6 or so and it wasn't a huge deal.
The huge deal was the remaining 31 ears in a crate in our mudroom....Yes, folks, we got a great deal at the grocery store on friday....one that we just couldn't pass up...$12 for 48 ears of corn, that is...and THAT is why we need a freezer. We usually cook with frozen corn in the winter, so why not, faced with a deal such as this.....freeze our own? Our trusty copy of "How to Store your Garden Produce" by Piers Warren in hand, we looked it up. Blanching. Aha. Ok then. Here we go:
First we shucked all of the corn. (Here's S.)
Here it all is, fully shucked.
The corn that we use over the winter is dekerneled (is that even a word?)...so we decided it would be more useful to preserve them that way. That was the next step, taking the kernels off of 31 ears of corn (yes, I counted.) S. got really close to the cob when he did this so we got tons of corn off of the ears.
S. removed the kernels
The next step was to blanch the corn. This is done to preserve the sweetness and texture of the corn through the freezing process (someday maybe I'll experiment with the same batch of corn..some blanched, some not, to see if it really makes a difference.) Dekerneled corn only needs to be blanched for 1 minute--we did it in batches since we had so much corn.
Corn kernels blanching
After boiling them for 1 minute they got an ice water treatment to stop the cooking process.
The corn in ice.
Then we put them into freezer bags. 4 and a half gallon-sized bags later, we were done. Doesn't it look yummy to be frugal? This is much more corn for much less money than if we had just bought it frozen.
The corn in the freezer.
We've been talking about getting a chest freezer for a while now...at this rate we may want to consider it sooner rather than later.....
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mmm, corn. That looks so good.
I made these last weekend and they were a big hit. But I used fresh grilled corn.
http://www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/3469
Those look really good--I know what we're trying when our zucchinis come in---thanks for the tip! I'm sure that was amazing with grilled corn.
Yum! I love bicolored corn, and what a deal you got. I tend to make lots of black bean/corn salsa...I know your tomatoes aren't completely ready to go yet but that's something else you can make and stick in that freezer of yours...