Putting up the Corn

My birthday shindig was planned with grilling burgers, chicken, corn in mind. Seeing as how I caught the swine flu's cousin a few days prior to the party, we now have a freezer full of meat and sacks full of corn. Even though I'm still a little under the weather, I am clearly doing better than I was the last four or five days. Evidence of improvement?

-7 loads of dirty laundry piled at the top of the stairs
-bathrooms that are filthy
-food is rotting in the fridge
-we ran out of bread and eggs
-fruit flies are circling the sacks of corn
-my seedlings which were ready for outdoor soil are wilting in their starter pots
-I have no idea when my flower beds were last watered

and most importantly, I NOTICED all of the above.

Well, 4 loads of laundry are finished. Diapers are washed, folded, and stowed. One bathroom is clean. The least dirty one. Food is still rotting int he fridge but most of it is in sealed containers. And I'm 12 ears of corn into taking care of the fruit fly problem.

As a kid, my grandmother's freezer was a magical place, full of prepared home made, home grown food. Well, almost home grown since she got a lot of it from the local Mininites. I remember huge bowls of strings and snapped bean ends, piles of corn recently shorn of their kernels, greens wilting in the big stove pots, and mountains of pork being pulled into BBQ. Hands down, my favorite was fresh tomatoes, creamed corn, and BBQ. And every time I came to visit Grandma, that meal was an option (excepting perhaps the frsh tomatoes) because she always made enough to put some up. During college, I lived about 45 mintures from her house. I went to visit many weekends and always got sent back with a cooler full of goods. Those are days I won't soon forget!

So here's the way my Grandma always 'put up the corn'.

1. Husk. Pretty self explainatory. Take off the husks.
2. Silk. Make sure you get the silks of really well or they'll mess up the corn.
3. Shuck. Using a comfortable knife, cut off the kernels into a bowl.
4. Scrape. Scrape the blade of the knife firmly over the kernel beds several times. This pulls out the cream of the corn and is vital for the taste of homemade cream corn!
5. Cook the kernels and scraped off 'cream' in just a little water until blanched.
6. Let is cool and put the corn into freezer storage containers.

When you pull the corn out, all you have to do is thaw it in a pot and add the chicken bullion, sugar, salt, and milk. I've never had left overs.