Dad plants sweet corn for all of us every year, staggered a week or two apart so we have sweet corn for longer. I don’t know exactly how far apart; I’m sure someone will read this and correct me since I seem to get something wrong in every post.

It’s like when there’s a story in the paper that you were part of or know everything about. You read the article, and you find one thing reported incorrectly, then another, and another, and you come away wondering why you bother to believe anything you read or hear on the news ever.

Sweet corn is one vegetable that you want to freeze yourself if you can get hold of some fresh in season, because frozen store-bought just isn’t the same. Now, this isn’t true for all vegetables, as Mom and I concurred the other day. Yes, we talk about this kind of thing. We’re boring. We agreed that green beans, on the other hand, are pretty damn awesome frozen from the store. But sweet corn? Not so much.

no, she is not high

So get to a farmer’s market or a roadside stand right quick, get yourself some just-picked sweet corn, cajole a partner — you really, really want to do this with a partner — and set aside a few hours to freeze sweet corn.

I drafted my aunt for the job. Which works really well, because I like blanching the corn and she likes cutting it from the cob. Which is the two main jobs involved. She’s got a fancy-schmancy corn-off-the-cob-cutter and I have to say, it’s awesome. I thought it might cut too deep and get that fibrous stuff you can’t chew and then have to hope you’re discreetly spitting it into your napkin, but it’s adjustable.

We spent 2-1/2 hours from start — going out to pick and shuck the corn — to finish, including a quick trip to town to buy ice. This was to package 23 bags worth of 1-2 cups each, from about 40 ears to begin with.

how to freeze sweet corn

For us, approximately 40 ears yielded about 30 cups of cut corn. YMMV.

Before you begin, have the following:

One or two large pots
Two or more 7-pound bags of ice
At least two large bowls
Pint or quart size freezer bags
Colander
One cup measuring cup. A funnel comes in handy too
Corn cutter. Not necessary, but quicker and easier than hand-cutting with a knife
Container for used corn cobs
Straw, if not using hand-pump vacuum seal bags

1. Procure sweet corn. Either walk out back and pick some or get some at a farmer’s market or roadside stand. Buy it as fresh as possible.

2. Shuck sweet corn. Wipe away as much silk as possible. Break off the “handle” ends. If your corn is near-organic like mine is (like near beer?), there will be bugs trying to eat all that precious, precious starch. It’s likely the bugs have already made a dent in the tassel end of the corn. Solve that with step 3.

3. Cut off any ends with bugs on them. If an adventurous bug has wandered down mid-ear and begun chomping, cut out the bits where they’ve been. This part squicks me so I let other people do it. If you’re lucky, you’ll have an “other people” of your own to do it for you too.

3.5. Put water on to boil in a very large pot at some point in the shucking process. Now would be a good time.

4. Take the corn inside, and wipe off as much remaining silk as possible. Don’t worry about a bit of silk; stray strands will likely boil off when blanching, and if it doesn’t, well, more fiber for you.

5. Run cold water in a clean sink and add ice. You want the water to be icy cold. I’m anal about this. The purpose is to stop the cooking when you dump the boiling-hot ears of sweet corn in there. Keep it so there is always at least some ice in the water.

6. Dump 3-4 ears of corn into the boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes. Hey, now you’re blanching!

7. After five minutes, pull the hot ears out of the water with tongs, and transfer immediately to the ice bath in the sink. Allow ears to cool for five minutes.

8. While the corn is cooling, add 3-4 more ears to the boiling water. Now you’ve got a system going. One set of corn is blanching while the previous set is cooling.

9. After five minutes in the ice bath, remove ears and stand vertically in a colander so they drain well. Set the colander on a towel on the table where you’ll be removing the kernels from the corncobs.

10. Using a sharp knife or a corn cutter, liberate the kernels from the corncobs, either right over a large bowl, or transfer it to a large bowl when done. Don’t cut too deeply, or you’ll get a lot of unchewable fibrous material. It’s better to err on the side of caution here. If you use a knife, the corn will be more cream-style; if you use a corn cutter, the corn will be shoepeg-style.

11. Continue steps 6 through 10 until all of the corn has been cut from the cob.

12. Using measuring cup (and funnel, if desired — it makes things much less messy), portion cut sweet corn into freezer bags. For pints, put in 1 to 2 cups. For quarts, you can add up to 4 cups. I find that 2 scant cups of corn is a good amount when using it later for things like chili. However, it’s entirely personal preference.

13. Seal bags and remove air from them. If you’ve got the neat hand-pump vacuum seal system sold by Ziploc and probably other companies, you are rocking. If not, grab a straw, stick it in the bag, seal the bag around the straw, and suck as much air out as you can. Quickly remove the straw while closing the seal behind it.

14. Freeze your homemade sweet corn!

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corn

I have a confession to make.

I cannot bring myself to bake or cook with fresh berries.

Why not? Their season is so short, it seems such a waste to transform them with heat, when frozen berries will do the job just as well. And you can whip out frozen blueberries in the dead of winter, anytime.

But fresh berries in the dead of winter? You know they’re out of season, so they’re being shipped thousands of miles, and hey! *snaps fingers* we’re trying to eat more local here. In that process of being shipped across continents, they’re losing freshness and flavor, and won’t be worth much fresh anyway, in my opinion.

Why not practice a more seasonally-aware cuisine? Gorge on fresh when it’s available, and freeze or preserve once you’ve gotten sick on fresh blueberries. (Tomorrow I’ll be freezing blueberries, and show you how, which is hardly necessary, as it’s so damn easy you’ll wonder why you haven’t done it before.)

In the spirit of practicing a more seasonally-aware cuisine, we’re now eating 99% blueberries and sweet corn. Ha ha.

13 ways of looking at a blueberry

Simple, as usual, is better. There are approximately 3 general ways to go with fresh blueberries. First is sweet, and mixed with dairy and/or grains. Second and third are savory, in salads or salsa.

We’ll get the obvious out of the way first.

1. Blueberries plain in a bowl, eaten with a spoon or by the handful. See the picture at the top of this post. My favorite. Sprinkle with sugar for more sweetness.

2. Top breakfast cereal or oatmeal with blueberries.

3. Top pancakes with blueberries. Okay, I’ll allow you to make blueberry pancakes with fresh blueberries in them if you want. Just this once.

4. Blueberries in a bowl, with milk, or half and half, or cream. Add sugar if you insist.

5. Crush blueberries slightly with a potato masher, and stir into yogurt. Drizzle with honey or maple syrup. Thanks to Sarah of Yummy Smells.

6. Another from Sarah of Yummy Smells: Mash blueberries with a touch of honey, and layer atop peanut butter on graham crackers. It’s rustic blueberry jam!

7. Microwave vanilla ice cream for 10 seconds. Sprinkle fresh blueberries on top, and stir in.

8. Remember that strawberry feta salad? Make it with blueberries instead of strawberries.

9. In fact, add blueberries to spinach salad too. Try spinach, blueberries, sesame seeds, goat cheese, and a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

10. Make a parfait layering plain or vanilla yogurt, blueberries, and granola. Add wheat germ and banana slices if you like.

11. Top lemon, lime, or vanilla pudding with blueberries.

12. Blueberry and corn salad. Blueberries like corn, which is handy since they’re in season at the same time. Cut the corn off of a cooked or grilled ear or two, add a cup or two of blueberries, some fresh basil, a bit of olive oil and lemon juice, and salt and pepper. I’m probably going to make this and turn it into a post. :p

13. Blueberry salsa. Chop up blueberries, red onion, bell pepper, jalapeño pepper, cilantro, splash in some lime juice, season with salt and pepper. Serve atop grilled fish.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: banana, blueberries, corn, feta, oatmeal, pudding, yogurt

The only cold soup I’ve been a fan of is gazpacho, and I haven’t had it in years because I can’t find any place around here or any recipe that makes it the right way, with bread.

Other than Sevilla-made gazpacho, spooning a cold pureéd liquid into my maw just has never been a thrilling thought. What’s the point? It’s cold, drippy, and lacking texture.

This corn and coconut milk soup from June’s Martha Stewart Living, however, has me rethinking that position a bit. I realized a chilled soup does indeed have a reason to exist, and that’s as an appetizer or side dish. A chilled soup is never going to make the center of a meal, but with a salad or sandwich, or if you have people over and you’re feeling fancy, soups like this fill a niche.

And the simplicity of this particular recipe helps. The only fussy part is straining the soup after pureéing, and I learned the hard way that the straining does need to be done, unless you like gumming on detached corn kernel hulls (yum!).

This chilled corn and coconut milk soup is rich, punctuated by diffuse heat from the jalapeño, and tempered with some balancing tang by a bit of lime juice. Permeating it all is, of course, the sweet aroma of corn blended with the oh-so-subtle base of coconut milk.

Best of all, however, is the cool palest green color the soup takes on from the jalapenõ. I feel like I’ve had a dip in the pool just looking at it, calmed and refreshed. I used white-kerneled corn and encourage you to seek it out if you want the same pale green; yellow corn will make the soup pale yellow.

Corn is ready or nearly so in the warmer parts of the country, and we’ll have it here in a few weeks. In the meantime, frozen corn works just dandy in this.

Have a cup of this with a loose-leaf lettuce salad lightly dressed with vinaigrette, or, when entertaining, as a prelude to a fish main course, such as asian salmon on quinoa. It will pair well with a sandwich on hearty whole-grain bread, too.

chilled corn and coconut soup

A colander or other coarse sieve works well for straining the soup after pureéing. A colander’s side holes may be a bit large, but most of the soup will strain through the medium fine holes in the colander’s bottom. I tried a fine mesh sieve first and it captured too much of it!

prep: 15 minutes
puréeing and straining: 15 minutes
to table: 4 hours
servings: 8
special equipment: blender

3 cups cut corn, thawed if frozen
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
2-1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon lime juice

Bring corn, coconut milk, jalapeño, and water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.

Pureé in batches in a blender, filling blender halfway at a time. Strain the pureé through a coarse sieve or colander into a large bowl to remove loose corn hulls. Discard solids.

Season soup with salt and pepper. Chill at least 3 hours. Before serving, stir in 1 tablespoon lime juice.

Adapted from June 2009 Martha Stewart Living.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coconut milk, corn, jalapeño peppers

Ohnoes. A pantry meal — in June!

It may be spring — almost summer — but the garden’s getting a slow start around here. A very wet spring kept us from planting until late May. We’ve already burned past the asparagus and rhubarb, and strawberries are due any day now, but normally at this time we’d have lettuce and radishes at the very least.

But it was not to be. The radishes are just about big enough to snack on, but there just isn’t a lot going on yet. I’m not in the mood for hot, heavy, stick-to-your ribs food now, though, so I turned to a main-course salad and dug out this black bean and couscous salad recipe.

Couscous is one of my favorite pastas/grains. I like whole-wheat couscous (obviously!) and it’s one of the whole-grain products that doesn’t seem any different from non-whole-grain variety. It isn’t even prepared differently; perhaps a touch more water or broth when making it, but it turns out fine without such watchfulness. Couscous also pairs amazingly with beans, and I’m partial to black beans. A lot of which goes to explain why I enjoy this salad so much.

You’ll notice in the picture that I used green pepper because that’s what was on hand, but it’s really yummy with sweet red pepper. Also, notice how white the corn is? That’s because it’s from the corn I froze last year, another good reason to have some now — I froze a lot of sweet corn!

The dressing is what makes it stand out, though. This is one of those malleable salad recipes where you can mix and match and swap ingredients to no ill effect, because the aromatic olive oil and lime juice mixture that’s holding it all together is what makes it sing.

So I thawed some frozen corn, got out some whole-wheat couscous and black beans, chopped up the pepper and green onion (the only fresh ingredients) and mixed up the dressing, and had a refreshing spring pantry dinner.

black bean and couscous salad

prep: 15 minutes
to table: 20 minutes
serves: 8

1 cup whole wheat couscous
1-1/3 cups vegetable broth
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or from concentrate
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 green onions, chopped, green tops only
1 bell pepper, any color, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro or 1tablespoon dried
1-1/2 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained

In a medium saucepan, bring the vegetable broth to a boil. Add the couscous and stir. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, cumin, salt and pepper. If using dried cilantro, add now as well. Stir in green onions, bell pepper, fresh cilantro (if using), corn, and black beans.

With a fork, fluff the couscous. Add couscous to the vegetable/dressing mixture and mix well. Serve immediately or chill.

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Post tags: black beans, corn, couscous, sweet peppers