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.

 

Adapting to a Tiny Freezer

My freezer is tiny.  It's the smallest side-by-side Frigidaire makes (I assume).  I can't even fit a frozen pizza in it!  So, when it comes to storing food in my freezer, I have to be creative with the space I have.

I like to buy my ground beef in bulk, because we go through it very quickly.  As soon as I get it home (or sometime in the next few days), I measure out 1lb servings of the meat and put them in freezer bags. (This is not the cool part yet)

The cool part is that I realized I could save space in my freezer AND help myself when it comes to defrosting my meat later.  When I put the pound of meat in the baggie, I squeeze out all the air.  I then mold the bag to form a flat meat 'pattie'.  The bags now take up only about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of vertical space.   I put those flattened bags in a gallon baggie to keep them all together in my freezer.  I can get up to 6lbs of ground beef in one gallon bag by flattening them out like this.

Not only does it save space in my freezer, but it also serves an equally important purpose.  I started out flattening them, because I wanted my meat to defrost quicker.  The thinner they are, the faster they defrost.  And as an added bonus, you don't have the frozen middle 'chunk' that you're too impatient to wait for, that freeze your hands when you try to form meatloaves or hamburgers. Or is that just me?

Flattening out my ground beef for freezing works for me!  Stop by We are THAT Family to find more tips and tricks that work for others.