How I freeze Corn on the Cob

It seems that all my posts recently have been about food.   I’m obsessed with food.   I will say that I have food on the brain a lot recently, because I’m watching my calorie intake.  And I’ve lost a lot of weight from just limiting my calories.  Someday I’ll blog about it, but it seems that whenever I blog about weight loss, I put it right back on –darn that Satan!!  So, when I’m good and ready, and prayer protectioned up, I’ll post about how I’m losing weight for real this time.  (Last time didn’t work for me.)

*I know this post is untimely, seeing as how corn is now out of season, but I’ve never been timely before.  Why start now?

On to the work!

I love corn on the cob.  Whenever it is on sale, I buy as much as I can get.  Usually I fix it every night for a week, we’re totally bloated, and fed up with corn for the season.  This year, since I was watching my calories, I couldn’t eat as much in a sitting as I like to  used to.  So, if I didn’t want to throw away the corn, because it had gone bad in my fridge, I had to come up with a way to store it. 

Most people now are shaking their heads and saying, “duh, Manda, why don’t you just freeze it??”  Well, it took me a while to figure this out, but that’s just what I did.  I looked up how to freeze corn, found out it’s a bit of a process, but totally worth it, and began the work.

Even though corn is done being on sale in the grocery stores, the big apple farm we went to a few weeks ago still had fresh ears for $.050, so I bought a dozen.  It’s not the best price of the season, but it beats what it could be I guess.  

Here is what’cha do:

Get a pot of water boiling, shuck your corn, and get an ice water bath ready.

Drop in a few ears of corn at a time, let them boil for a few minutes, then drop them into the cold water bath to stop the cooking process. I boiled them for about 6 minutes.  If you’re doing this for the first time, you may want to look up the actual time you’re supposed to boil them.

Cut the corn off of the cob, separate the kernels, then lay them out on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Save an ear for your toddler who won’t stop asking you for corn on the cob RIGHT NOW.  He LOVES ‘cob on corn’ as he calls it.

Stick the baking sheet in the freezer for a few hours, or overnight, or for a few days if you’re like me and forget they’re in there.

Once they’re frozen, break them up and put them in a big ziplock bag.  I use a straw to suck out the extra air from the bag when I’m putting something like this in the freezer.  It’s almost like vacuum packing it, but not. Close enough. 

I froze broccoli and green beans this summer like this too.  I boiled them for about 3 minutes, then froze them the same way.  I froze bell peppers as well, but they don’t need to be blanched, they can just be chopped and frozen. 

I would love to say that I have a huge stock of fresh frozen veggies waiting for me to use this winter, but unfortunately, we’ve eaten it all up already!  I need to make sure this corn lasts into the winter.

 

Healthy Recipes

I was posting recipes here for a while, then I dropped off the recipe bandwagon.  I don’t love to blog about recipes, but I do love to share yummy food, so I’ll do a quick cheater recipe blog post. 

These are the recipes I’ve been trying out lately on our low calorie diet.  They’re pretty yummy.  (you can click on the pictures to be taken to the recipe)

This is Kraft’s Fish and Vegetable Casserole.  It was pretty tasty, though, I would never have thought about putting something like this together.  I ended up changing some basics of it, so I can’t say what the original recipe tastes like, but the skeleton of it that I used worked well with my changes.  It calls for red peppers (I used green), onions, white fish (I used Swai), tomatoes (I forgot to add these), Italian dressing, and red potatoes (I used sweet potatoes because that’s what I had on hand).  And then it’s all topped with mozzarella cheese (I used a Mexican blend because that’s what I had).  It did call for cilantro, but none of us really like cilantro, so I left it out.  I think this dish would be great with chicken or pork as well. 

This next recipe is one of our favorites now.  Honey Mustard-Glazed Pork Chops from Eat Better America is now our go-to recipe for quick and yummy dinners around here.  We’ve had it twice in the last week.  You just sear the chops real quick, then add a mixture of honey, mustard, ground cloves, onion powder, salt (or onion salt if you have it)  and pepper to the chops and let them cook for about 10 minutes.  It’s that easy.  I usually roast some broccoli or do a mixed veggie on the side.  YUM!

Beef and Bean Enchiladas.  This is our other OH MY GOSH IT’S AMAZING recipe.  We fell in love with this recipe as soon as it crossed our lips.  I haven’t made it again yet, but I will be making it as soon as ground beef goes on sale again.  That’s how I roll.  I don’t like beans, so I was a little leery of this one, but I didn’t even notice the beans in there when I was eating it.  It’s another super easy recipe.  Sauté the peppers and onions, brown the beef, add the  seasonings and beans, then wrap everything up in tortillas.  Put some salsa in a pan, lay your wraps in the pan, then cover with salsa and cheese.  Bake and enjoy!  Really.  It’s so super easy and so super yummy.  I used low carb tortillas last time, but I’m going to use my homemade ones next time.

 

That leads me to this final recipe I’ve tried recently.  I like tortillas, but I don’t love them.  They usually have a harsh taste to them that I just can’t describe.  But it leaves me reaching for the hard tacos instead of the tortillas on taco night.  I decided to try my hand at homemade tortillas and WOW are they good!  I could eat the whole batch in one sitting I’m sure!  That strange, harsh taste is not there at all. Flour, salt, baking powder, water,  & oil.  That’s all.  Now, I do have to admit that they take a lot of work to roll out super flat, and my arm muscles were given a workout when I made my batch, but they really are worth it.

There ya go!  I hope you try something listed here.  They really are yummy.  Let me know what you try – I love to hear other’s reactions to what I think is yummy.  Oh, and if you’re looking for more healthy recipes, you can check out my ever growing Healthy Recipe Pinboard.  If you need an invite to join Pintrest, let me know and I’ll get you started.  it’s addicting, but oh so helpful when you want to find really great ideas. 

Start Your Day With a Rainbow

The other day I decided to make rainbow pancakes.  I can’t say what possessed me to do such a thing, but I’d seen it before and I thought Jack might enjoy it.  Plus, he was asking me for blue pancakes, which I thought was weird and would look gross, so I turned it into a rainbow of pancakes.  He loved it, and it didn’t take much effort to make them. 

It wasn’t hard to dollop out my batter into 5 small bowls, then add about 5 drops of food coloring to each.  The orange was the only one I had to mix. I think it’s a 2-3 ratio of yellow to red. Or a “mix until you like the color” ratio.

I have to admit, it was kind of freaky seeing colored pancakes cooking on the griddle.  Fun, but freaky.

In the end, I was impressed with how colorful they turned out.  I really enjoyed making these, and I see them happening in my future.  Not often of course, but I’ll do this again for a rare treat I’m sure.

Have you ever tried Rainbow pancakes?  They will start your day off with a smile.

Foto Friday–FOOD

What a great topic for Foto Friday.  I love food.  You can tell by my picture.  I love food A LOT.

I love sugar most of all.  Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish are two of my favorites.  One of my friends on our Girls Trip 2011 brought candy for our gift bags.  I love her!  She brought Sprees and a sour patch type gummie bear.  I did my friend duty to collect anyone’s extra candy that they may not have wanted.  Who knew that there are people in this world who don’t like sugar!?

As I was editing this shot, I couldn’t figure out which picture I liked best, so I decided to put them both up.  One shows how bright and vivid the colors of the candies are, and the other one is just a cool processed shot with a new texture.  I have been corrupted by Kim at Mom Tried It, because she keeps sending me links to actions and textures for Photoshop.  I love her!!  It’s so fun to play around with my picture editing now.  It’s even more fun to have someone to go through this learning and experimenting process with. 

Here ‘ya go.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy some sugar! I’m sure I will at some point.

Oh, and a big THANK YOU to Kim for featuring my picture on her blog today.  She liked my train track picture from last week’s Foto Friday, so she featured it on her post today.  That makes me feel like a real photographer or something!!  Thanks so much, Kim.  I’m the Photoshop junkie I am because of you!

Girls Trip 2011

The weekend before Mother’s Day, I took a trip.  I went away for the weekend.  8 mommies got away to a cabin in the woods and did whatever we wanted and had very little responsibilities.  It was wonderful!  I took my computer with me to jot notes about what was going on.  I had a quirky, interesting, “don’t forget these moments” draft started in my Live Writer. 

Then, my computer crashed.

March Date Night

This date was much like the first date we had in January.  We went out to eat, wasted some time doing whatever came to mind, then ended the evening at Bob Evans for their yummy desserts.  It was as exciting as it sounds. 

We really need to change things up a bit!  We are planning a big change in April if plans work out.  My fingers are crossed. 

Here are the highlights of our March Date Night:

We went to the restaurant where they serve you peanuts in a can.  Woo-Hoo!

We hadn’t been to Texas Roadhouse in a long time.  It was a nice change.

These were our yummy dinners we devoured in no time flat.  Very yummy pulled pork for me (I didn’t eat the top portion of bun to try to be healthier) and angus burger for my man.

To waste time before going to Bob Evan’s for dessert, we went to a nearby county airport.  Rick loves to look at planes. 

Look, Jack can come next time!

Rick actually took one or two lessons here. He loved it!

There’s a museum at this airport as well. I have never been, but maybe someday we’ll take Jack to see the big planes.

This might possibly be a clue to what our April date may be. 

Rick loves guns.  He loves to look at them.  For long periods of time.  I took pictures because I wanted you to see what I had to go through on our date. 

And this is our son STILL awake after our date.  That boy hates to go to bed! 

Our wonderful babysitter (and former student and player of mine – Love that girl!!!) tried to get him to go to bed, but he was not having it.  He came down and said “I just want to talk to you for a while, Mommy.”  He wasn’t allowed off the steps, so he kept having me move closer and closer to the bottom step.

All in all it was a fine date.  Rick and I got to spend some time together, enjoy each other’s company, and have great food.  But, we can’t do many more of these dinner dates.  It’s too boring for us. 

Progressive Dinner (a.k.a. February Date Night)

Since we missed our February Date Night because of being sick for the second half of the month, we needed to make it up in March.  Unfortunately, we’ve been sick most of March as well, so we had to make do with a planned church group outing as our date night. 

Our date night was a progressive dinner with 6 other couples.  We didn’t have to plan or fix any food, but rather four couples from the church hosted us for 4 parts of the dinner that night.  It was a way for the ‘older generation’ to connect with the ‘middle generation’.  We are a group of 30-somethings who just started getting together for fun monthly activities.  It gives us a way to get connected in the church. 

We traveled as a big caravan from house to house that evening.  We started with an appetizer at the first home, soup and salad at the next, the main course at the third, and desserts at the final home.  Boy was the food good!  All of our hosts were gracious and great cooks!  I forgot to get pictures of some of the food (I was too busy eating), and I couldn’t get a house shot of the final home (it was too dark by then), but here are the highlights of our Progressive Dinner/February Date Night.

 (you may have to click on the image to view it larger)

Joan had fixed (yummy) meatballs, a dip served in a bread bowl, and veggies, crackers and cheese.  It was yummy!  Jay collected Royal Doulton mugs, which I had never seen before.  He also brought out some of his vintage model cars that he collects.

Ruth served an (yummy) arugula and pear salad with a nice vinaigrette.  The arugula was a bit peppery, but the pear was a nice pair for it. HA!  The mushroom bisque had a lot of parsley in it, so it almost looked like pea soup, but it was very good.  Not a very strong mushroom flavor at all, even though I don’t mind mushrooms. Ruth collected frogs, Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, and I’m sure lots of other things. 

Our pastor and his wife served us the main course.  Diane made (yummy) individual meatloaves, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, and rolls.  MAN was that good food!  Later, I asked for the recipe for the meatloaf.  I tried it with some ingredient substitutions and it wasn’t nearly as good as hers.  I will try that recipe again for sure!

Betty is an amazing dessert maker.  She is famous among the church members for her desserts.  I wish I was brave enough to have tried a little of it all, but I was on my good-girl behavior so I only had the (yummy) coconut cream cake and (yummy) cheesecake with strawberry topping.  She also had oatmeal pie, apple pie, blueberry pie, cherry pie, chocolate cream pie, and another pie I can’t remember.  All reports were glowing!

If you ever get a chance to participate in a progressive dinner, I say go for it!  Though, I know this was not the ‘normal’ way they work, since we didn’t have to cook any part of the meal.  That was such a nice treat! 

Our actual March date night will be this week!  We’re going to try out a Bistro downtown that has a farm out by our place where they grow their own food.  It looks yummy and I can’t wait to go out again with my hubby.

February Date Night

There wasn’t one.

The last two weeks of February were pretty rough for us.  Jack got pretty sick, then since he’s learning how to share, he gave it to Mommy.  Then, being the good example to my son that I am, I shared it with Daddy.

(We watched a lot of Bob the Builder that week!)

We were supposed to visit Rick’s parents in Florida last week, and we REALLY could have used a warm, sunshiney vacation, but it was not in the cards for us.  19 hours in the van would not have been fun for these sickies.

So, we’re planning to have two date nights in March.  Yippee!!  We may try out a new Bistro I heard of recently.  They have a farm in my town and use whatever is in season for their menu each day.  It looks great, and we’re excited to try it out. (It also looks expensive, so we’ll need free babysitting that night. Hint! Hint!)

We also may go to a shooting range and shoot some stuff one day.  Rick loves shooting and since I’m a Woman in the Outdoors, I enjoy shooting a gun every now and then too.

I need to write these ideas down because there was a third idea that came to our minds the other day that I can’t remember now.  Shoot. (naaa, I already mentioned that one) :)

We’re off to IHOP tonight (with Jack) to enjoy some free pancakes.  Today is National Pancake Day, and since it’s one of the few foods Jack is sure to eat, we're going to celebrate it tonight for dinner.  I can’t wait!

(picture from Amanda’s blog I Am Baker)

Date Night #1!

This Christmas, I gave my hubby a thoughtful gift.  Time with me!!  I gave him 12 handmade cards, each with a “redeemable for one date night” note on them. 

We are to use one each month to guarantee at least 12 dates this year.  The entire year of 2010 held only a handful of date nights for us.  Probably a whopping 3 nights total.  Now, we did make up some time by taking a weekend away on our anniversary in August (Thanks, Aunt Beth for watching Jack that whole weekend!).  But this year I really wanted to invest more time in our marriage.  With a thriving 2 year old begging for our attention, Rick’s job and hobbies pulling at him, and my love for all things on the internet taking up my time, making time for each other isn’t something we end up doing a lot of.   I plan to change that by making  him offering him a chance to go on a date with me once a month.

This month we chose to go to a new restaurant just down the street from us. It’s a small Italian place that some friends of mine recommended. While we enjoyed being out –alone- together, and the atmosphere was pretty quaint -though we do prefer booths to tables- we didn’t exactly love  the food.  It was good, but as we were walking out, we said,

“That was pretty good.”

“Yeah, I’d come back here again'.”

“But I wouldn’t order that dish again.”

“Me either.” 

So, did we like it?  I’m not really sure!

After dinner, we decided to drive across the intersection to a tried and true restaurant for dessert.  Bob Evans.  Nothing fancy, but it was YUMMY!  We never get to eat dessert there, because we’re always too full from our meals.  It was the highlight of our date night, for sure! Just look at these:

They were as good as they look.  We might have to make all of our date nights end at Bob Evans.

Since we’re trying to get all our carbs eaten in just one hour (thank Dr. Atkins), we had a lot of time left to spare, so we drove to the local mall and walked and talked for the last hour or so of our date.  I drug Rick through the kitchen gadget stores and he drug me through the sports stores to look at guns and ammo.  When we arrived home, our babysitter (first ever that wasn’t a family member or close friend) said Jack did great.  He cried a little when we left and again when he had to go to bed, but other than that, the night was successful for him too!

We’re encouraged for our next 11 dates.  We don’t want to spend this much every month, so we’ll try to use family and friends who would like to spend time with Jack for an evening or afternoon, and we’ll probably change up what we do when we go out.  We’re thinking next month we may sit at the library and work on stuff we’ve been ‘meaning to get to.’ 

What ideas do you have for creative dates?  We don’t want to get in a rut, so what else could we do?  Any recommendations? 

30 Days!

Well folks, I made it to 30 days!!!  If you have no clue what I’m talking about, let me share with you.  I accepted a Challenge from my friend to exercise for 30 days.  We were to exercise for 5 days straight, take two days off, and continue that for a total of 30 days of exercise.  That took us about a month and a half (6 weeks). 

During the challenge, I mostly walked.  I walked around our neighborhood, I walked at the park, and I Walked Away the Pounds on days I couldn’t get out of the house.  Rick and Jack joined me for two weeks walking in the park.  I loved that!  Rick would push the stroller, while I got busy walking.  We are up to walking 3 miles a day!

 (this isn’t me!)

Last week, I noticed a change in my walking.  I walk pretty fast to keep my heart rate up, and after a while, I was having trouble keeping up with Rick – he always pushed me to walk a little bit faster.  All of a sudden, I started to speed walk.  My stride changed, my hips swayed differently, and my arms were bent like a runner’s.  I found that I could not only keep up with Rick, but I could go even faster with no extra effort.  It was amazing!  I felt like I could walk more than 3 miles.

This week it rained every day! So, I stayed in every evening to Walk Away the Pounds.  Rick tried to watch Jack while I walked in my living room, but sometimes Jack just wanted me to hold him.  At one point, I did a knee raise right into his little cheek!  It was then that I decided to put him in the baby carrier and walk with him on my back.  That lasted for a little while, but thankfully, he asked to get down not too long into the walk.  That did add a little more intensity to my workout though.

(This is me!)

I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking with this challenge for 6 weeks.  I don’t see any difference in my body or the way my clothes fit right now, but I’m planning to give it another 4 months to really evaluate how it’s working for me.  I figure that after 20 or so weeks, I should see some difference in the way my clothes fit!  I can tell a difference in my stamina though.  I don’t get winded as easily, and I feel like I can walk farther than I did when I first started.  I don’t get winded walking up the stairs either!

I’m not sure what the next 30 day challenge will be, though, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be about food. Heather said something about giving up sugar.  I stopped reading her blog right after I read that.  No, just kidding.  I don’t think I’m going to go so extreme yet.  For now, I’m going to add more plants to my diet.  I need to eat more fruits and veggies.  I’m not sure how that will translate into a 30 day challenge, but we’ll figure something out. 

I can’t wait to report back in 4 months on my weight loss and how my clothes will be fitting better. I better stick with this!

Oh Pasta, How I Love Thee!

 

Today is a backwards WFMW.  Instead of sharing our tips, we get to ask for help from other bloggers.  My questions are about making pasta.  Here is the background….

Last week, I decided to make some pasta.  I had made up my mind a while ago to start making my own pasta, but I hadn’t gotten around to making enough to store it in the pantry. 

After remembering the recipe for pasta incorrectly, I ended up making a TON of pasta.  (I thought it was 2 cups of flour to 1 egg, and it’s actually 2 eggs to 1 cup of flour)

Here is what my kitchen looked like….

I really need a pasta drying rack!!

These little bits at the end made for a yummy pasta lunch (pasta with Prego.  You can’t get easier than that!)

After I was done making and hanging the pasta, Boozle and I went to the library for story time.  When we came back after a few errands, this is what I found…

The pasta had dried and started to break off onto the counters (and floor!).  It was quite a mess! If you just breathed, they broke into pieces.

  

In the end, I ended up with three big containers full of pasta.  The pasta is all different lengths, because they all broke at different points.  And, to get them to fit into the containers, I had to break them down even further.  It’s not very pretty! 

 

Believe it or not, this will only last a few dinners.  We really love our pasta!

If anyone out there is a pasta expert, can you tell me how to keep it from being so brittle?  And how can I make it straighter? I’m not sure I have enough countertop space to lay it all out flat.  Do you have a better pasta recipe? 

Thanks for stopping by!  If you’d like to see if you can help out other bloggers with their questions, head on over to We Are THAT Family and see who has linked up today!