I have decided to do a little series of posts on gathering and preserving foods on a budget or when you are low on funds. If you want to put up or preserve food and do not have garden space to grow your own or money to purchase it you still can. I have been able to put up quite a bit of food this summer and most of it I got for only my physical effort, and a little research. In the town I live in our power company owns quite a bit of land. As a tax right off they grow eating corn, Bodacious corn, as a matter of fact. Then they give it away! There is a limit of 10 ears per house hold and with mine and my boyfriend's households that was 20 free ears of corn. So I decided to do a picture tutorial showing how I froze the corn. So lets get started...

First things was to get a large pot of water boiling for use later. You also need to make sure you have quite a bit of ice. I have a counter top ice maker because we use a ton of ice. You need about as much as comes in a bag from the store so if you have several ice trays that would work too. Then shuck all the corn, and I use a small vegetable brush to clean off all the little hairs. Then I rinsed it off well.

This what I ended up with. Then I cut my ears into smaller pieces. This helps with getting a better seal with my food sealer I have. So then here is what I had...

Next the corn has to be blanched, which means to put it into boiling water. I blanched it for 7 minutes. So at this point I put the corn in the boiling water. You only want to put in enough that the water will start to boil again within a minute. You then start timing your blanching time when the water returns to a boil. I put in half the corn at a time, so in two batches.

When my timer went off I then removed the corn from the water (I kept the water boiling for the next batch), and put it in a sink of water with half the ice in it. The corn has to be cooled down quickly to stop it from cooking. This preserves the flavor and nutrients in the corn. It should stay in the ice water for as long as you blanched it. So I left mine for 7 minutes. Next is putting it into whatever you will be freezing it in.

I used my Food Saver sealer for the corn. I purchased my food sealer at a garage sale, and happened to have some of the bags left to seal in. I have since priced them at our local discount store and even on sale they are VERY expensive so I am not sure if I will continue to use them or switch to Ziploc bags again. I love the beautiful air tight seal I get with it, but we will see.

So here is what I ended up with. I got 5 meals worth of corn out of my 20 free ears. Come January or February fresh tasting corn on the cob will be quit a treat! And that is how I froze corn on the cob this year.