Annie’s Fast And Easy Freezer Corn

The other day, while on the way to Little Bug’s violin lessons, I noticed that the local farmer once again had his sweet corn booth set up by the side of the road.

For those of you that live in the country, it is a fairly normal sight to find an unmanned vegetable booth with a list of prices, a container of bags, veggies, and a can to throw your money in. It is operated on the honor system, and I love it.

I bought ten dozen ears of corn from the self-serve roadside stand, and traveled on my merry way. On the way home, I called my sweet mama and asked her if she would care to join me in a “Put up the sweet corn so we can eat it this winter” fest. I enticed her with free bags of sweet corn for her own freezer. She said yes almost immediately.

My sweet mama is the fastest person this side of Heaven when it comes to cutting corn off of the cob. Seriously. That woman puts us all to shame. However, using the tips and methods that we use, you can be finished with your sweet corn lickety-split as well.

Annie’s Fast And Easy Sweet Corn.

• Husk all of your corn before you begin. I like to do mine outside, the evening before, if possible. I store it, neatly stacked, in a cooler overnight. I give the husks to our goat and pony. Some people use them for compost. Others throw them away.
• The following steps are made for a two-person team, but can be modified for one or for three or more.
• Set up the following: two cake pans on a waist high table. Two knives by the cake pans. Two shallow, large pans. One large bowl. One smaller bowl. Microwave steamer (I use the large steamer from Pampered Chef. If you do not have one, a covered bowl will work just fine!) A rubber spatula. A one-cup scoop or measuring cup. Quart sized freezer bags. A permanent black marker. A large bucket or bag to place corncobs in.
• Once you have everything from the above list in place, you are ready to begin. From this point, it took my sweet mama and I 45 minutes to process, bag, and freeze ten dozen ears of corn.
• Grab an ear of uncooked corn. Place it, wider side down in cake pan. Using sharp knife, cut kernels off in a vertical motion, rotating the ear as you go. Once finished, place empty cob in container. Repeat until cake pan is full.
• Empty cake pan into large bowl. (First person continues to cut corn off the cob while second person starts the rest of the steps. During any lull time, the second person returns to the cake pan, cutting corn off the cob.)
• Transfer enough kernels of corn to fill the steamer from the large bowl, to the small bowl.
• Place contents of small bowl into the steamer. Add 2 Tablespoons of water. Place in microwave for five minutes. Refill small bowl with uncooked kernels so that it is ready for the steamer.
• Once corn is steamed, remove from microwave and pour into large, shallow pans to cool. Repeat steamer process as directed above.
• Using the permanent marker, write the date and contents on the quart-sized bags.
• Using the one cup scoop, measure in however many cups you want per bag into the quart-sized freezer bags. As a reference, our family uses 3 cups per bag.
• Squeeze all of the air out of the bag, sealing it in the process.
• Shake bag in a horizontal position, flattening it in the process.
• Lay bags in freezer. Once frozen, bags may be stacked for storage.

Yep. That is it. While it may seem like a lot of steps, once you get used to the routine, it will go quickly. As I mentioned, my sweet mama and I did 10 dozen ears in 45 minutes. The main holdup is waiting for the corn to get steamed in the microwave. If you have the next batch pre-measured, it will make it go much faster.

For pictures of the steps, just visit Homestead Annie’s Facebook page here.

Have a wonderful day, my friends!

~Annie