Our Trip to Utah Part ....(oh, who cares?) Putting Up Corn

Every year in Utah I'm lucky enough to be home just in time for the corn harvest, which is great, because I love me some corn. However, the bad part is it's time to for the annual "Putting Up of the Corn," a Higley family tradition. You'd think I'd somehow be smart enough to get myself out of this one, but no. I never see it coming. Ha! Just kidding, Mom (sort of). I actually don't mind it. Over the years we have gotten quite good at this chore and have made several stream-lining changes to make the process more efficient. Trust me, guys, we know how to do it.

It takes a lot of corn....a LOT of corn. I was shucking for probably an hour and a half straight without stopping and there was usually another one or two people doing the shucking with me. I should some day count how many ears of corn we do, but I always forget. But trust me when I say it was a lot.

After the shucking, we boil the corn. We used to do this in the house which was murder back when we had no air conditioning and after we were done with the whole process the entire kitchen had a sticky film. So about 20 years ago (or more) we started moving everything to the outdoors. We use camp stoves to heat the water and coolers to blanch. It works a lot better that way and then mom can just spray down the patio with the hose when we're done.

Mom blanching the corn. Erin "helping."

After we blanch the corn we cut it off the cob (with electric knives, of course) and put it into freezer bags. We have lots of fun talking and goofing around while we work and it's fun for the kids to get involved. We had a great time this year and ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours and yielding about 70 quarts of corn....that's 70 sides dishes for my mom's roast for Sunday dinners! It tastes so good that I refuse to buy frozen corn...it just doesn't compare!

Dad "helping"

Olivia looked after Oakley