Sunday, August 31, 2014

It's a corny time in the Midwest!


Those of us who live in the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, etc) know this fellow very well.  My husband's from central IL and he LOVES corn on the cob!  He'd eat it every day when it's in season if I cooked it for him.  As for me, I remember suppers when I was a girl where Mom would set a huge platter of corn on the cob in the middle of the table and that was dinner!  My sisters and I used to eat it as though we were typewriters, including the "ding" at the end of the row!

Don and I have usually grown our own sweet corn and for the past 10 years, we were invited to a pick-your-own corn field and were able to get all the corn we wanted for free.  We had some very good neighbors when we lived in the country.  This year, Don planted a patch of corn for us at the community gardens where we're gardening now since our yard doesn't have any good growing spot but does have a multitude of rabbits!  I think they live under our deck and are right at home in our back yard.  Well, nothing did well in our community garden this year, including the corn.  Too much rain. Sandy soil. Not enough heat. Our corn did very poorly, so I've been buying it from a corn truck in town.

Today, I went to the truck to buy 6 dozen ears of corn and learned that tomorrow is the last day the truck will be here. Corn season is ending!  So I came home with corn and learned that in corn terms, a dozen ears is really 15.  How generous is that!  Don and I set up production--he and I shucked/husked (not sure which term is correct, but I mean we took the leaves and hairs off the ears.) the corn. Then he began blanching the ears and I cut the kernels off the cobs. When I had enough cut off, it was Lily's turn to enter the game and she bagged up the corn.  I took out 6 ears for corn on the cob later this week and took 2 cups of cut corn for corn fritters with tonight's supper, and that left us with 27 bags of corn headed for the freezer.  It'll be like having summer sunshine on our dinner plates in the upcoming darkness of winter.


I've never made corn fritters before but I'll be using the recipe here and I think it will be delicious. We have some brined pork chops that will go on the grill and green beans as well as sliced tomatoes.  That makes a typical Midwestern summer supper and I'm looking forward to it. What are you cooking up for dinner tonight?

1 comment:

  1. I love corn fritters . There isnt anything like fresh corn though and it sounds like you're totally set for winter.

    Its breakfast time here as I type and I haven't even thought about dinner yet -but last night we had greek sausages and lamb chops.

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