Sweet Corn for the Winter

The season for sweet corn is winding down in these parts.  Corn is a major crop across the Midwest, and is always plentiful here.  However, I've missed out on corn on the cob for the past several years.  I started craving it a few weeks ago, and bought a few ears.  I've been addicted to it ever since!  Not only is it just delicious, it seems to be helping with some of my gastrointestinal issues.  Win-win!  There is nothing that screams summer more than a fresh ear of corn with butter and salt. 

Well, maybe ice cream screams summer.  And watermelon.  And grilling...

Anyway, many of the produce stands around here have been offering end-of-season deals on bushels of corn.  I got a bushel for $10 (5 dozen ears--which comes out to between 16 and 17 cents an ear) and decided to ask my mom for her recipe for freezer corn.  I remember her making this when my uncle grew corn waaaaay back, when we were young'uns.  She gave me the instructions, and my husband offered to help with this big job.  Today was freezer corn day!

It was really an easy process, but a lot of work, kinda messy and somewhat time-consuming.  With me and the hubs working together, it still took around three hours, and that didn't include time for the corn to cool to room temp in the bags.  Still, it was very worth it to have delicious sweet corn in the freezer, waiting to cheer up our winter meals in the months to come.

We started shucking the corn at the same time.  Once a dozen had been cleaned, hubs continued with the shucking while I got out a large bowl, a small bowl, a long serrated knife, Dutch oven pots, freezer bags, my 8-cup measuring cup, a strainer, sugar, and salt.

I inverted the small bowl inside of the large bowl, with the flat bottom of the small bowl pointing up.  I set the cob on top of the small bowl, and sliced all of the corn from the cob, letting it fall into the large bowl.  It helped a lot having the ear elevated above the cut corn.  Thanks for the tip, mom!

Once I had 8 cups of corn, I put it into the Dutch oven pot, along with 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 2 tsp. salt.  I brought it to a boil and let it boil for ten minutes, then I strained the corn in the sink to remove the extra liquid.  Then, we set it aside to cool a bit before we put the corn in freezer bags in 2 cup measurements.  We squeezed as much air out of the bag as we could (hubs was really good at it!) and flattened the bags in preparation for freezing. 

And so the afternoon went: lather, rinse, repeat, and so on.  All told, a bushel of corn gave us 22 2-cup bags of corn.  Before I knew it, it was six o'clock and dinner hadn't been started yet.  I cleaned up and fixed some dinner (complete with a side of buttered corn) while hubs finished bagging the corn. 

There is nothing as sweet as the fruits of your labor!

Except sweet corn.

Thanks again to my beloved husband, who helped me with all of this!!