Freezing Corn

The kids are always commenting on how good the corn is that Grandma Jody and Grammy serve. Fresh sweet corn that’s frozen and served year-round is so much better than the store-bought frozen corn or canned corn. It’s really not even comparable. Robb and I put up corn years ago when we were first married, and my mom has given us some here and there, but it’s been years since we’ve put up corn ourselves. Then Grammy Hansen called to let us know that Randy and Kylie had some corn we could have. This is usually obstacle number one for us—finding corn that doesn’t cost $6-8 a dozen. The other issue is timing. When the corn is ready to pick in Tekamah, we’re usually on our Yankton vacation. This year, when Grammy called, Robb went down that very night to pick up the corn for us. Caleb spent the night shucking half of it while watching a movie in the basement. When I suggested he do it outside, he promised to keep it contained to a towel, insisting it was so hot outside he’d "die" if he had to do it out there. Bryce, of course, managed to avoid the whole thing because he was at work at all the right times.

The next morning, the girls and I got started bright and early. Emmy washed the corn and removed all the silk, while Abby handled the blanching and took it out to cool. I used an electric knife to cut the kernels off the cob, and Emmy packed it into bags. We had a good system going, and no one was complaining. About four hours in, we finished all the corn Caleb had shucked, so I had the girls take a break while I finished the rest. After about eight hours, we were done. It was a long, hot, and sticky day, but we froze 64 bags of corn, each with 3 cups. Do the math—that’s a lot of corn! I had promised the girls we could go see the Barbie movie if we finished, so we all showered off the sticky mess and got ready to head to the theater.