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!!

A Few of My Favorite Summer Things

"Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you."--1 Samuel 12:24

It's been a busy week.  I've started longer hours at work because we are short-staffed for the summer, and it's been an admittedly hard adjustment for me.  Plus, we had some unexpected plans come up last weekend, which put me behind in housework and all of the other things that I normally take care of on the weekend, so I've been trying to catch up in the evenings during the week.  Today I feel exhausted, and struggled to get through my morning at work.  However, I enjoyed the drive in to work--I love the warm, muggy, hazy mornings that only occur in the summer, and this morning was perfect for that.  That inspired a list of my favorite things for the summer season.  What do you love about summer?

I love the smell in the air!  I love how fresh nature smells in the summer.  This is not as noticeable if you live in town, but the fragrance is intoxicating out in the country.  The smell of roses in bloom, freshly-cut grass, dew in the air...the smell of life and growth that is only experienced in warm months.

I love the heat!  I know that doesn't make me the most popular person in the world, but I enjoy it, because it makes me think of how much fun I had during the summer when I was young.  I don't necessarily want to be a kid again, but summer vacation was what I always looked forward to, because all I did was play outside.  I rode my bike around the neighborhood, roller skated (remember those?), played games with the neighbor kids, swam in the pools, and never wanted to bathe.  Maybe that's too much information, but I never wanted to come in at night and take a bath and have to go to bed.  It cut into my fun time too much.

I love to travel in the summer!  Seems like I do a lot of traveling in the summer, and always have.  You don't have to worry about snow and ice storms making the roads bad, and besides, there are just many more events to travel to in the summer, like festivals, beaches, cookouts, and tourist attractions.  I also just love sitting in a car with the sun shining in and the little air conditioning vents pointed right at me.  This usually lasts for about five minutes, and then I freeze, but I like it.  Just a great time of year to hit the road.

I love garage sales!  These only happen in the warm months here, maybe only six months of the year, sometimes less.  I don't know what it is about shopping for stuff in someone else's garage that is just so fun, but it is--you really never know what you might find!

I love gardening!  Even though I call it my "practice garden", I still enjoy tending the garden beds.  It's great for learning what works and what doesn't; for instance, this year, broccoli didn't work.  It bolted before we could get anything harvestable.  No big deal, I'll try again when I have a large garden--I also think that I didn't have enough room for them to grow.  I'm getting potatoes already, so I'm pretty excited about harvesting those soon.  I seem to do well with lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, and bush beans.  I'd love to grow carrots, strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and other things, but now's not the right time.  I look forward to having my dream garden someday!

Enjoy the hot summer weekend, everyone!  And thank you to everyone who checked out my turtle cookie recipe in the Little House Living recipe blog hop last week--it was the most-clicked-on link in the linkup!  I hope you enjoy the cookies as much as we do!

Dog Days Already?

Woof.

Wow, I can't believe how quickly the weather seems to have changed.  We went from extremely wet and cool to August heat and a welcome dry spell.  There is a saying in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and I'm sure every other state that goes, " just wait five minutes and the weather will change".  Well, that's certainly been true lately!  I'm not complaining, though; I do like the hot, humid summer weather.  It reminds me of when I was young and loved to play outside during the summer vacation.  We didn't have central air, just a window air conditioner in the upstairs where the bedrooms were located, and that was turned on at night only when it was too uncomfortable to sleep.  What fun it was to spend all day outside playing with the neighborhood kids!  We'd ride bikes, roller skate, play games, swim, or play on the swing set in the back yard, and it never seemed to get old.  I never wanted to come inside for the night, and I couldn't wait to get outside again in the morning.  I was probably dubbed the "smelly kid" because I didn't even want to waste time bathing.  Just let me go out and play!  It's too bad that we tend to lose that playful nature as we mature, and the pressures of being grown-up seem to swallow what adventurousness we might have otherwise had if we were still carefree.  Happens to all of us, I know; but wouldn't it be great to have that back again?  If you had one week out of your life, where money, time, physical fitness, fear of the pain of injury, and all of the other concerns of an adult were just completely forgotten, what would you do with that blissful innocence?  I know what I would do--everything I am too old and out of shape to do now!  I would play on the jungle gym, and swing on the swings, and run through the sprinkler, and eat a tuna sandwich at the picnic table.  Then I would run around, and get a cramp from eating, and not let it bother me; I would go get the biggest, shiniest kite I could find and fly it all afternoon.  After that, I'd come back and have a grilled hamburger, because it's not summer if there is no grilled meat, and then I would jump in the pool that had been warmed all day by the sun and swim around until the mosquitoes were too much to bear and the fireflies were putting on a spectacular light show.  Only then would I resign myself to the confines of my home's four walls, although gladly would I fall exhausted into bed for the night.  Those would be the days!

I hope others have the same type of memories that I do.  It was great to have the freedom to have fun!  There are truly days where fun is a very elusive notion, and if I'm not careful, I'll find it to be a distant memory.  Every day is a gift from God Himself, and should be treated as such!  So why is it so easy to let life weigh down so heavily on our hearts that we lose the freedom our spirits long for?  As long as we look at the blessings that God gives us on a daily basis, we should find our hearts full of joy and gladness.  Blessings of family, love, stability, comfort, rest, relaxation--James 1:17 says perfectly what I'm describing: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."  Not every gift is tangible, but every gift--every blessing--can be felt in our hearts.  What blessings are you thankful for today?