I had some ham I wanted to make for dinner tonight. I
often make a big ham with gravy and freeze slices with the gravy for
those nights when I don't know what to make. Its an easy dinner then. I
felt like having cornbread but didn't feel like making cornbread. I
remembered seeing recipes for Corn Pudding. Now Ive never had that. So I
wandered online to see what I could find.
Many are made with
packaged corn muffin or bread mix. I didn't want that. I really wanted
from scratch. There's not many out there that sounded good tho. So I
took the one I thought was pretty good and of course tweaked it my way.
My bf said it was yummy and I should make it again, I agree. While we
liked it, we felt it needed just a touch of sweet to it so we drizzled a
tiny bit of honey on our servings. It was perfect!
And so I used
buttermilk in it because I love the flavor of that with cornmeal. And
it calls for canned corn but this was really made from scratch tonight.
I used a pt. of corn I canned this summer when I got a bunch fresh from
the farms. It was a great combo. Here's my version which I bet is
closer to what they used to make in the country many yrs ago.
I love this so much I'm going to have whats left for
breakfast the next day or so. I think topped with fruit, warmed and then
topped with butter and maple syrup it would be a yummy breakfast. I
cant wait!
Corn Pudding Serves 6
6 tbsp butter
3/4 c cornmeal
1 c boiling water
3 lg eggs
2 c buttermilk (you could use reg. milk)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 can corn kernels (or one pt. of homemade canned)
Honey for serving (next time I may add some to the recipe)
Heat oven to 375F. Put 2 Tablespoons butter into 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Place in oven to melt.
Put cornmeal in a medium bowl. Add boiling water and
whisk until smooth. Add remaining 4 tablespoons butter and stir until
melted.
In another bowl beat eggs until blended. Beat in
buttermilk, then stir in B.powder, salt, and pepper. Beat or whisk into
cornmeal mixture, stir in corn. (mine was canned with the milk from the
corn like creamed corn so you could just use a can of that if you want.
It will be very moist)
Pour into melted butter in baking dish and bake 10
minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and bake 35-40 min longer or until puffed
and golden brown on top. Drizzle with honey when served.
I don't know what I was thinking when I said I want 12
dozen ears of corn from the farm. Sounded like a nice round number that
I could handle. I added my family's order in and asked for 15 dozen.
WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING? lol If
you read the post where I did the big farm haul you will know how this
all came about. It wasn't till our order came on the pickup truck that
I thought I might have bit off more than I could handle. I
rationalized mine isn't that much cuz
my friend ordered way more. When we got to my house and portioned out
my order and 6 bags with corn sat in my garage, I had a moment of
panic. But then I thought Hey Ive done massive prep at fine restaurants
for parties bigger than all this. True I didn't do it alone but heck
this was just corn right? Most gets composted anyway.
WRONG! lol.
And so I plunged in the next day. I started shucking and blanching
away. In between Id toss big buckets of husks into my compost bin
outside.....in the rain I might add lol.
I haven't felt well the last day or so but figured it was just
allergies. Um NO . Seems Ive got a cold or something and pushing hard to
process all this and in and out of the house in the rain.....has not
helped.
(The farmer told me the easiest way to shuck corn is to
feel for the end of the ear. Take a knife and slice it at that point.
Most of the husk will peel away real easy then. It does work, I was
flying thru shucking all by myself.)I
kept plugging away at the massive pile of corn and finally at about 9
dozen or so I said ...I quit. I called family and asked if they wanted
the rest. I knew I still had to process all this and I just couldn't
deal with any more corn. I still have other things out in the garage to
deal with after this.
And so last nite after all the blanching was done, I cut up enough corn into coblets to fill 3 gallon freezer bags. There's only two of us here so I'm sure it will be enough for the yr. Sadly I now have to clean out a shelf in the freezer cuz there's no room. I didn't expect this corn till next month. So now Ill be going crazy trying to find room for all this.
I cut off all the kernels from one pan of the corn. As you can see in my pictures theres two piled high with several dozen ears still. And there was one half tray not filled yet. The half tray I cut up into coblets.
The blanching water smelled good tho and since I had
decided to make corn cob stock later with the leftover cobs, I tossed
them back in that water as I cut. I also scraped off any milk on each
cob before throwing it in that water. After one pan tho it was late and
I wasn't feeling well so I just turned the water on under the cobs to
cook awhile and had something to eat. I ended up going to bed very
early cuz I was sick.
(Corn cob stock)
Next morning I started in heating the Pressure canner
up and getting my jars ready too. I took all the cobs from the water
and tasted it . YUM very nice, just like sweet corn so I heated it up. I
decided I would use this stock instead of boiling water to can the
corn with. It would add a lot
of flavor. Ive read where sometimes the juice gets caramelized from
canning so I added about a tbsp. of Fruit Fresh to the stock. I figured
it might help with that and surely couldn't hurt it. Its just an acid
which help keeps things from going bad anyway. One of my friends has a
yummy freezer corn recipe that I'm going to use for the rest of that stack...but I decided to try to make the jarred corn just as good.
So for each pt. jar I added a pat of butter, I topped it
with the corn kernels. You pack it loosely in the jar, not really hard.
Once I was ready to can it I poured a ladle or so of the corn stock thru
a strainer into my jar. Run a knife around the edges and in the middle
a bit to mix it up and remove bubbles. If it needs more stock, then
top it up to a half inch from the top. Then I wipe the rims of the jar
real good and put the lids on. From this pan of corn I was able to get
24 pts. of corn. So Ill be pressure canning them in two batches.
The rest I put in plastic freezer bags using my friends
recipe. Sadly I blanched all the corn before I read her recipe. She cut
off raw corn and then did the recipe. It should still be good cuz the main part, scraping the corn, I still did. That's where all the good flavor is.
Today I cooked the second batch of corn cobs and made stock from that. I strained it and ended up with 5qts. I'm
going to try it in my clam chowder. And I read that you can make corn
cob jelly from it too. I don't have time to do that right now so at
least its canned till I am able to do that.
I just know I'm tired and I still have two boxes of peaches and two boxes of tomatoes to do. lol. I only wish I wasn't sick.
* Pts. of corn were pressure canned at 11lbs for 55minutes.
Corn cob stock was pressure canned at 11lbs. for 20min.
Update: This yr. I think Im going to use some of that corn cob stock when I can the corn. I used all the milk and juices from it. But now that Im opening them to use the top color looks a bit off cuz I think there wasn't enough liquid. I just scraped that off and used the rest, Its fine. But this yr. I dont want to have to do that so Ill use corn cob stock to top the jars before canning.
I found this recipe online awhile back and finally got a chance to make it. The original called for fresh corn that you cut off the ear and saute. You certainly can do that if you wish but I didn't have that in my house at the moment. I bet it would be great in the summer with fresh corn. However, since I usually have canned or frozen corn on hand, thats what I used.
Corn Salad with Feta serves 2
1 can (160z.) canned corn, drained well
1 tb. butter
2 tb. olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp. dried thyme (you can use fresh if you have it)
3-4 green onions, green portion only, thinly sliced on the diagonal
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
4oz. feta cheese cubed or crumbled
Juice of half of a lime
1 tb. fresh chopped basil
In a large nonstick sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm the butter and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil until nearly smoking. Add the garlic and sauté, stirring constantly, 20 to 30 seconds. Add the corn and sauté, stirring occasionally, until golden and just tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the thyme and green onions and sauté for about 1 minute more. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a large bowl. Let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.
3. In another bowl, combine the tomatoes, cheese, the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, salt and pepper and toss gently to mix. Add the tomato mixture, the lime juice and basil to the cooled corn and toss to mix. Taste and adjust the seasonings with salt, pepper and more lime juice. Serve at room temperature.
We just loved this. Its a nice change from a green salad as a side but this could even be a lunch with some nice crusty bread on the side.
