Homesteaders
6:54:00 PM
In our efforts to be as "adultish" as possible, we decided to process our own corn for the winter! Mitch's family gave us some corn and the methods to process it all, and we got to work! We have been striving to can and process as much food as possible to take care of ourselves and get a few steps closer to becoming self-reliant.
I have actually grown to really love canning! It has been fun to see that I can make something and use it for the benefit of my own home and family! It has also been nice to see that I could honestly take care of my little family if there was an emergency or if we weren't able to live the way we do now.
We also have 8... maybe 9 chickens that we are collecting eggs from, so having corn will also help us cut down on feed for the chickens and hopefully keep giving us some healthy and delicious eggs!
Zane loves corn and even stole a few raw cobs off of the stack to munch on. He is a total fiend through and through.
To process your own corn, here are some helpful directions and tips!
- Before shucking your corn, start boiling large pots of salted water. Starting the water before you shuck will help to maximize your time. We failed to do this and had to wait for quite some time for all of our water to boil. A kind neighbor offered to help us because we were running out of daylight by the time the water boiled.
- Shuck all of your corn at once. Don't continue to shuck throughout the process. Getting it all done in the beginning will help the process go along more smoothly. After shucking your corn, fill up bowls with cold water. We used a large tubberware tote. Place the bowls or tote somewhere that you don't mind getting wet. We had our entire setup outside to make sure that we didn't have much to clean up. This worked really well for us!
- After shucking your corn, place cobs into boiling water until full. Then, allow the water to heat back to a boil. Boil the corn for 3-4 minutes.
- After boiling for 3-4 minutes, pull the corn out and immediately dunk them into cold water. Leave corn in the cold water until they are no longer warm.
- Cut off kernels from cold cobs and put into freezer bags. We used vacuum-sealed freezer bags to keep our corn fresh for longer.We also froze the cobs so that we can throw them out to the chickens every once in a while.
- Date, freeze and enjoy!
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