Freezing Sweetcorn

We went to the Old Capitol Farmers' Market this morning and bought 24 ears of sweetcorn (cost: $9), which we then processed to freeze for the winter.

Aw, Shucks! 24 ears of sweetcorn, ready to be shucked.

Naked Corn! Ready to be blanched.

24 ears of sweetcorn made about 4½ quarts for freezing. We'll need plenty more for this winter!

I did a quick "back of the envelope" calculation. Let's suppose that for a typical lunch or dinner, we would use about 2/3 of a quart bag (e.g. 1/3 of a bag of corn, plus 1/3 of a bag of green beans, plus some bread). That means that 3 meals would use up 2 bags. That means that over the course of 3 days (6 meals total, not counting breakfasts), we would use up 4 bags. Over the course of a month, we would use 40 bags. Over the course of 6 months (the months when there are no farmers' markets), we would use about 240 quart bags of food.

Yikes!

Of course, this is very much an approximation. In addition to ignoring breakfasts (which generally involve eggs, cheese, and/or fruit), I also haven't taken into account things like potatoes (which don't need to be frozen or canned). I also haven't accounted for frozen chicken, beef, pork, etc (which I eat, but Dawn doesn't). Bread? Milk? Butter? Cheese? Occasional dinners out or trips out of town?

There's plenty of variables to consider, but the message is still the same: We need to preserve more food!

Comments

[Mary Cockrell]

Wow Wally, that looks so good, how do you not just cook it up and eat it all right then and there? You are a stronger man than I! Of course not being a man, I guess that's a given. ;-)

Mary

[Wally Hartshorn]

Actually, I was quite tempted. Even though we were just blanching the corn, it smelled great! I just reminded myself that there was still more where that came from!