Sweet Corn? Yes, Please!

Well the summer is dwindling down and our Fall harvest is just about ready to begin. 

I get super excited about harvest every year. It is such a bittersweet few months. I get so excited that the day we start chopping silage marks the day for me to begin decorating our house with Fall decor! 

Yes, call me crazy. I decorate for fall in September..but let’s be honest- the Fall really starts for us in September and there is something about a home filled with Fall that makes my heart sing.

Another mark to the end of the summer is the process of freezing our sweet corn. Freezing sweet corn is really simple to do- anyone can do it really. If you have a farmer’s market you often go to you will realize that at the end of their season the sweet corn really starts to get cheap. Buy some up and give it a try, I promise you that you will not be disappointed with it come January and you are craving some sweet corn that doesn’t come from a can!

First things first. If you are picking your own..grab a friend and four small children! 

Well, that is how I started out. I realized that it would go much faster if I had someone to do it with me this year. So, I convinced my sister in law she needed to freeze some corn and she brought along 4 little corn pickers. Now, if you have small children helping you..pick a little extra.

My very first year here my Mother-in-Love spent a day with me showing me how to freeze sweet corn…I owe all of my ability to freeze to her because I have to call and ask her every time I go to do it how long I need to boil anything, or whether or not she has frozen certain veggies (a few weeks ago- green beans).

Step 1: Shuck your corn. And pile it all into one big bucket. I like big red buckets.

Step 2: Add the corn to a BOILING pot of water, has to be boiling. This is a process called blanching. My sis in law does a fabulous job of demonstrating!

Step 3: Boil corn for approximately 5 to 7 minutes. It is basically just like boiling the corn to eat.

Step 4: Fish out corn and add to a cold water bath. I filled up my sink to I could easily replace the water once it got too cold. 

Step 5: Start cutting. The first year I did this I used a regular knife to shave it off the cob. My sis in law brought along her electric knife and I swear there was a lightbulb that went off inside my head. Such a great idea. 

Step 6: We fill up large mixing bowls with all our corn. Then use measuring scoops to scoop out what we want in each Ziploc bag. I only put one cup in my baggies. My sis in law, with her family of 6, puts in 2 cups. 

Step 7: Find room for all your fresh sweet corn in the freezer. If you are like me I just kind of dumped it in there until I could make room. But, make sure you keep it flat until it freezes, then you can maneuver it around.

We roughly picked around 100 ears of corn. That makes about 54 bags of corn, with one cup in each bag.