All About Food: Sweet Corn

There is something amazing about fresh sweet corn and here in illinois people don't seem to mess around. People go crazy throwing elbows to get to "their"ears, even though the whole cart is full and there seems to be plenty to go around. Until the Lubchansky's show up with two large bins to pack up. They pick their first ear, open it up, break it in half and give it to that son of theirs who is signing more and stating corn and begins to devour it, corn milk running down his chin.

We picked up about 80 ears of corn one weekend to put up, this is an easy one that anyone could do, you need a knife and ziplocks, some bowls and a cutting board come in handy and this is definitely a chore we prefer to do outside, so that spare table comes into good use.

Step One: Shuck the corn, don't worry about all the tassel strings, you can't get them all off, so don't try. Discard bad tips and bugs.

Step Two: Cut off kernals- this does need to be done with fresh corn, your grocery store stuff has converted its sugar to starches and therefore requires blanching, if you can open up the corn and take a bite, and it is yummy, things are still in good shape- you can also have your children do this for youStep Three: Fill your bowls with corn. It is best to use bowls that will easily allow the corn to slide off into a bag and to fill the bowl with only as many kernals that will fit in the bag.

Step Four: Fill and seal the bags, we like to make sure things lay flat, they store easier in the freezer. So don't over fill the bag, I also suck out as much air as possible to give it a vacuum seal appearence. Drop in the freezer, pull out as needed.

And it is so so good in the winter, sweet, great for some corn chowder, fantastic for enchilada casseroled or a black bean salad, just helps you relive the summer and just a bit goes a long way. We have 10 bags in the freezer for us and the business.