"Puttin' Up" Corn

Today is our 16th anniversary! We spent the day freezing corn and watching the Cubs Game. Jeff took 1/2 the day off, he has been working so hard on the house, church and Real Estate that he has lost so much weight, and is exhausted. He watched the Cubs win and did bills.

I dropped Jenna off at volleyball camp, her last day, and then sped to the grocery store. They were having a one day sale on corn on the cob, $3.88/dozen. Normally it is $5/doz.
I bought the store out, but that was only 8 dozen. I was hoping that they had more corn since their sale was a one day sale and it was only 9 a.m. Mik and Haley couldn't get over it that I was "stealing" it all from other customers.

Mom came over and we spent the next several hours doing corn. I took pictures of the process and then calculated the cost.

Row 1: Shucking the corn, and then boiling the corn.
Row 2: Cutting the corn off the cob (after plunging it in ice water to stop the cooking and to cool it so it can be cut off-I didn't figure I needed to take a picture of the corn in cold water.)
If you notice in the first picture you can see that the corn stays in rows after it gets cut off, it is so hard to not pick up a whole row of it and eat it-temptation got the best of us many times.)

Row 3: Mik and Haley wanted to help cut the corn off the cob sooo bad. I of course wouldn't let them do it with a sharp knife. I gave them kids knives, dull, and they were troopers. Haley gave up fairly soon but Mik kept at it, it took her about 5 minutes to do one ear and then the corn was pretty mashed, her bowl looked like creamed corn! After you cut it off you put it back into a pan and simmer it with sugar and butter. Then you bag it.

Row 4: Jenna displays our bags.

So here are the results. I thought for sure I would get more corn that 14 bags. I had written myself a note in a cookbook that said that the last time I did corn I got 23 - 3/4 full- quart bags. Like I said, I only got 14 today. So I was disappointed. I am not sure what the difference was between this time and last time.

The breakdown...
8 dozen corn at $3.88 = $31
divide $31 by 14 and that comes up to $2.20 a bag!!!!!!!!! Way too expensive. I know that frozen corn is way better than canned corn at 50cents a can, but really...$2.21 !?!?!? Is it worth it? Especially when you can buy a bag of frozen corn for 1$ or so, frozen corn is better than canned but not quite as good as my frozen. So...I think that consensus is that it is not cost efficient to freeze my own corn. I think that with the cost of food going up..it USED to be cost efficient to freeze it ourselves, like when we were kids. I don't know,,,I think it is such a good learning process for the girls to see how much work is involved to get food, and not just opening a can all the time....we shall see...I guess the jury is still out on this.

This fall I am going to freeze applesauce and I will document the process and the cost, I PRAY that is cost efficient b/c there is NOTHING better than homemade applesauce. I am also going to can jelly, for sure grape jelly, since my parents have a grape vine. So those grapes are free. I know that that is cost efficient.

Sorry about my ramblings. I am tired from my day on my feet freezing the corn. Jeff and I are heading out for dinner and then probably just coming home, we still want to work on some landscaping. I WISH that I would have taken before and after pictures of our landscaping, I didn't think to take them before. The transformation is awesome. When I post those I guess you'll have to just imagine the weeds. More later...