Solid Rock Ranch Updates: THE Corn Process

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

THE Corn Process

"He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame."

Proverbs 10:5

Two of our neighbors planted some sweet corn and invited us to take as many as we would like. (Like I've said before, we're extremely blessed with the neighbors we have!) Of course, that means A LOT of corn for our family...because if we don't use all of them, someone else we know will! We've shared the corn (we had too much) with people at church and with family. We've also canned and frozen lots of it! :)

Here's an idea of how the process of picking, preparing, and canning goes (illustrated with pictures of course!):

The country way of getting around...kidding, but seriously the little ones love riding in the wheelbarrow (I do too! :)

We could walk to our neighbors' patch, so we are very conveniently placed in between our neighbors fields. The wheelbarrow in the above picture was filled with corn when we were done...and that's the biggest wheelbarrow I've EVER seen.

Daddy found a process of picking and dumping that worked great!

He would pick the fat cobs and throw them behind him in between the rows and then one of us would go behind him and pick them up and put them in a 6-gallon bucket.

Here you get an idea of how it worked

(Caleb is that little blue thing in the picture)

'Siah in the corn!

(Doesn't he have such beautiful eyes?)

Eden found a corn!

A 5 gallon bucket filled-to-overflowing with fresh corn...right off the stalk! :)

We then dumped the buckets into the big wheelbarrow and when that was done Daddy loaded it onto his trailer and we drove/walked/rode bikes home.

We didn't shuck and de-hair the corn (so it would stay fresher longer) but we did get to canning it a few days after.

The way we canned (or froze) it this year was by washing, then blanching the corn. Then we dumped the hot corn into ice-cold water, drained them, and took them over to those who were taking the corn off the cob. Then we (using a knife or a tool especially for taking the corn off the cob) removed the corn from the cob and placed the corn in a bowl and then into clean jars. Then we put hot water over those and then sealed them and hot water bathed them till they were done. For the corn that was frozen we just put the corn into quart or gallon size freezer Ziplocs and stuck them in the freezer for dinners or soups.

Hannah and Caleb showing us their corn-covered hands and workspace.