Salvaging Corn

When the first two rows of corn came ready in the garden, we had our grandson here and no time to process. After he was gone, I picked half the rows and got a bunch of corn in the freezer, but the other half of those rows sat there as hay had to be put up, last of the pickles made, etc. So, I was thinking this over-ripe corn would just go to the piggies. But then, we remembered creamed corn, so I did an experiment and made a lovely small batch. It was so good that last night I picked the rest of the over-ripe corn, boiled it, cut it off the cob, mixed in cream, milk, butter, a little sugar and a little salt, and spread the mixture out in glass pans and roasted it in a 300-degree oven for about an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours, until the liquid reduced to carmelized goodness. That will make a wonderful alternative vegetable choice this winter!

Pickles, Jams, and other Goodies

The garden is really kicking in now . . . kale has been in for weeks and yields lots of good salad greens, greens to use for other purposes (steamed, or in omelets, for example); wax (yellow) beans are producing nicely and I'm thinking of pickling some of those; beets are lovely, first two rows of corn is ready to be picked, steamed, and frozen; pickling cukes are producing like crazy and I just processed what will be the last batch for us this season; and have had a few tomatoes, although not enough yet to go into a canning frenzy on those. We are out of nearly everything "tomato" from last season - canned tomatoes and salsa are gone, there's one jar of juice, and a couple jars of ketchup left . . . restocking is vital!

Darrell has made blueberry jam and peach jam, and is planning on peach pie (YAY!) and freezing the rest of the peck he got last week.

Last night I dug up a few potatoes off the Kennebec row and made scalloped potatoes with ham from a picnic shoulder from one of our Berkshire hogs - so yummy, and the left-overs make a great, quick lunch for both of us.

I spent a lot of time in the garden this weekend getting caught up on weeding and tilling - the recent, blessed rains had the little weeds popping out all over! Plus I actually got a major weed-through on the asparagus rows done - it's a challenge and entails crawling on hands and knees under the asparagus ferns - not a perfect job, but the rows are cleaner than they've been for awhile!