"There's more than corn in Indiana"...

The title of this post used to be an Indiana Beach tourism slogan (and jingle) years ago.  I remember thinking then, "Yeah, but what's better than corn?"  Fresh sweet corn on the cob, to be precise.

Every summer we wait for roadside stands to pop up selling freshly picked sweet corn.  These are not the stands that seasonally pop up along busy roads selling a variety of produce.  What I'm talking about are stands that farmers and local small growers place on their own property to sell corn that is usually picked fresh each morning.  Often they are unmanned, and corn is sold on a honor system, with the buyer expected to place cash in a lock box.

Around here, unless you happen to have (or overhear) a conversation with someone about these stands, your only hope of finding them is keeping your eyes open as you drive through the countryside. Since moving to our new home which is a few miles out of town, I have three summers under my belt of traversing somewhat new-to-me country roads on my way from here to there and back again.

Last summer, not even looking for such a stand, I spotted this one, but didn't stop:

It might have been late in the day and I figured there was no fresh corn left.  Or maybe I had no cash on me at the time.  Whatever the reason, I drove on by and figured I'd come back in the next day or two and see if I could still buy some fresh picked sweet corn.  But when I did drive by next, it was gone.  

The window for finding freshly picked sweet corn in central Indiana (and I imagine everywhere in the northern half of the US) is very short and somewhat unpredictable.  All I know is to look for locally grown sweet corn come mid July, but with our unseasonably early and warm spring I had no idea when it would be ready this year.  

For all I knew, we had already missed local corn-on-the-cob season when one day last week, in the late morning, I suggested to Greg that we get in the car and go for a drive, looking for the sweet corn stand I had seen on a county road nearby the year before. With Greg driving, I navigated right to this corner, and to our delight it still held a hundred or more ears of corn.   We boxed up two dozen, dropped a $10 bill in the lock box, and drove home with our treasure.  

In the shade, we shucked the 2 dozen ears, with me planning on freezing what we didn't eat that day.  Youngest son joined us for supper, and everyone agreed it was delicious.  This corn was so worthy of preserving, I sent Greg back the next day to buy a couple more dozen. 

Only being familiar with the tediously hot and messy method of blanching a whole cob, then plunging it in ice water before cutting the kernels off, I googled to check on the time one needed to boil the corn.  But in my searching, I came upon another method:  cutting the corn off the unblanched cob and cooking it for just a few minutes afterwards.  I also came across a nifty way to hold the corn while cutting which creates less mess.   If I had ever seen this before, I had completely forgotten about it.

This method is so simple, it actually is the impetus for me writing this post. 

Here, let me explain and show you (excuse my less than perfectly lit pictures):

After cleaning as much of the silk off the corn as you can, place the fattest end on top of the tube of a bundt or angel food cake pan.  Or simply use a cutting board.  With a sharp knife slice off the kernels - not getting too close to the cob, but not leaving too much behind, either.   I go back and slice down the corners that are created when doing this slicing.

In as large a pot as you need, add some water, just enough to keep the corn from burning (maybe a half - one cup). Bring to a boil, stirring off and on.  Boil for 2-3 minutes.  

If the corn isn't sweet enough, a small amount of sugar and salt can be added during this time.  Full disclosure:  the corn we got the next day wasn't quite as sweet and tender as the corn purchased the day before, and it was starchier.   I suspect it had been picked the day before and refrigerated.  I was disappointed, but it was still tasty, and I was determined to make the best of it.

The first batch that was perfectly sweet and not starchy, didn't need anything added to it to taste delicious.  The second batch, though, about a tablespoon of sugar, and a bit of salt helped greatly (this was added to a pot of corn cut from almost two dozen ears).  Perhaps cooking slightly helped also.  

I mention this because some directions say to add sugar and salt, but if starting with perfectly sweet corn, I'd skip it.  You can taste it raw while slicing it off the cob.  If you're working with less-than-perfectly-sweet or slightly starchy corn, these additions may improve the situation.  Go light, and taste test before adding additional sugar and salt.

After a couple of minutes of boiling, immediately remove from heat and with a slotted spoon, transfer corn onto a shallow baking sheet, or in my case, into a glass baking dish.  

Spread corn into a thin layer.   Discard any water left in pot (should be most of it).  Cover and refrigerate immediately.

After corn is completely cool (I waited a couple of hours), spoon into freezer containers, leaving some head space for expansion.  You don't need a scale, I just happen to have one, and I decided to put just enough for two people in each bag.  

It doesn't look like much in the picture above, but around 8 ounces appeared to be a hearty amount for two people.  I found that 1 cup of corn was right about 6 ounces.  

Freeze and enjoy at your pleasure!

I like the convenience and ease of freezer bags.  Laying them on their sides as they're freezing makes for thin packages that can be stacked or stored in baskets or freezer door shelves when frozen.

Now, if you are frugally minded, you may have already figured that this isn't the cheapest way to get your sweet corn.  Counting what was left after we ate some corn fresh, and having to discard two bad ears, I got 16 freezer bags (with two 4-oz servings each) from 40 ears of corn.  If I've done my math correctly, rounding up a nickel for each ear of corn - which almost compensates for the cost of the quart-sized baggies, each of those frozen bags of corn cost a little over $1.00 each.  For comparison, I can still buy a 15.25 oz can of corn for 69 cents at Aldi, and a 12 oz frozen bag for around a dollar.  

Unless you grow your own sweet corn, this isn't a cost saving activity, but I can't tell you how eagerly I now await eating sweet corn this winter that is fresher than anything I can buy from a store shelf or freezer. Sometimes, when you can make it happen, little pleasures are worth the extra cost in money and time.

But more importantly than that, I am so glad to have found an easy way to preserve sweet corn when I inevitable buy more than we can eat when it's in season.  This level of processing is so very little work, it's barely work at all.  Though, I will say here...  Using a bundt or angel food baking pan (as I showed above) makes this far less messy than simply using a cutting board.  Do I suggest buying one for this purpose?  No.  Am I glad I never rehomed my rarely used bundt pan?  Yes, I am!

I plan to come back to this post this winter (or next spring) and give an update on how good the corn is to eat.  I will edit this post if I am in any way disappointed. Until then, I'm looking forward to eating sweet corn this winter.

Here's a video that shows this process done on a much larger scale: