Corn Shuckin' Party

A few days ago, I was given a huge zucchini. I am regretting that I didn't weigh it. It had to have been 8 pounds! While talking with my friend, Christy about her zucchini brownie recipe; I realized, I had no way of shredding or blending this monster for freezing.  Being nice as always, Christy offered to put it through her blender. We then started talking about other veggies to freeze. We saw in the Meijer paper that ears of corn were only ten cents each! Sweet! I love Cheap! So thus started the talk of a corn shuckin' party.

It ended up being Christy and I with our other friend Ami. Between the three of us, there was just over 100 ears of corn. We set to work first on the zucchini. My monster alone filled five 1 quart freezer bags! Then we sat outside in the shade and shucked our corn while watching all of our kids play in the yard. Surprisingly, it didn't take as long as we thought it would.

Next came the HOT part. We put four pots on the stove and added about 3-4 inches of water to each. Once they started boiling we filled the pots with corn and covered with a lid. It took about 8 minutes to cook the corn. Towards the end we just took them out when they were golden.

Once the corn was nice and golden we laid them single layer on a towel to cool. While a batch was cooling, we were already putting more corn in the pots to steam. It was like clock work!

Once we could touch the corn without saying "OUCH!" We started cutting the kernels off the cob. We were shared two techniques to do this. The first is a nifty tool from Ami's mom. It would cut the kernels off the cob in three -four strokes. It reminded me of a vegetable mandolin. It seemed to work ok. We noticed that it would shred some of the kernels making them "creamy." We stopped using it when Ami cut her finger. We decided blood in the corn wouldn't taste to good. 

The second technique was shared with us by a friend. This was so easy and awesome! All you need is a bundt cake pan and an electric knife. Put the corn cob on the flute of the pan and cut away! The kernels fall into the pan all around. Once the pan is full, put in a large bowl to finish cooling.  Who would have thought?

(Love the Pose)

I bought thirty ears of corn for 3 bucks! This ended up being 16 cups of corn.  We laughed and thought, is this worth it? I think once winter rolls around, we are going to love the fresh taste! This whole production took about two hours to cook, cut and bag 100 ears of corn; and my monster zucchini.