Dehydrating Sweet Corn with a Magic Mill Dehydrator

Preservation madness has been going on around our homestead as of late.  I have so much to share and am going back to the beginning to tell my adventures.  While finding various ways to preserve plums, the sweetcorn in our area was ripening.  A combination of great farming friends brought some of the best tasting corn into our home with open invitations to pick more.  How wonderful is that?  After eating sweet corn at dinner for two weeks straight and filling the freezer with small, portioned Food Saver bags, I decided to try my hand at dehydrating sweet corn.  From all of my studies, the dehydrated corn, stored properly, will last for years.  (Not that I intend on holding it that long.)  I was equally intrigued by some adventurous souls milling some of their corn and making corn bread.  You know that Mock Mill will be coming soon! ;)  

After eating and freezing the sweet corn gifted to us at each of our places of work from some awesome farmers, Mr. Hollow was kind enough to take up an offer to go pick at one of his friend's farm whose family had already harvested what they needed.  Once I started processing that haul, hubby's bosses' field ripened, and he was given the opportunity to pick even more.  (So many wonderful people to be surrounded by on a daily basis. We are truly blessed.)  Both of my fridges were constantly filled with corn on a rotating schedule.  lol   The dehydrating of the corn was a little bit easier for me to put together and was easy to manage after a full day at work.

First, shuck the first dozen or so ears of corn, get the smaller corn pot boiling with water, blanch the corn for approximately 8 minutes, and slice the kernels from the cobs.  I found working with the smaller pot allowed the first batch to cool before the second batch was blanched.  Then, I could begin the slicing with the first ears out of the pot, allowing the second batch to cool as it waited, and not hold up the assembly line of slicing.  **Additional note...  If you decide to blanch a larger batch and refrigerate, make sure you break up the slabs into individual (or close to it) kernels.  Once they are cold, it is a real bugger to try to pry the slabs apart.   Ask me how I know! ;) 

 

My Magic Mill dehydrator has six shelves.  It arrived with two plastic screens to aid in the dehydrating of smaller items.  I ordered some BPA free dehydrating mesh to cut and fit for the remaining four shelves.  After the corn kernels were broken from the slabs, the process of loading the trays lined with mesh began.  I didn't get to freaked out about individual kernels touching, but I did not mound the corn either.  Each level of the Magic Mill held approximately 2 medium ears of corn.  After researching the internet for temps and times, I found my corn took a bit longer to dry.  So, in case you are using a Magic Mill as well, it took my corn 11 hours at 131 degrees.  If you go shorter and it doesn't feel dry, just turn the dehydrator back on and give it a few more hours.  No worries.  You can't mess this step up!  

How do you know when it is done?  Give it a pinch.  If the kernels are as hard as candy, you are done.  They will break when you try to bend them and will have a non-tooth-breaking crunch when you chew them.  Yes, I did say chew it. lol  Actually, a nice flavor as well.  

Each level was left to sit in the dehydrator for a few hours to cool and produced slightly less than a cup full of dried corn.  I was very impressed with that!   The corn was moved into a gallon Ziploc where it remained until all the corn was processed.  Then, I took some clean pint jars, some used ball lids reheated in water, and tried out my Food Saver vacuum ball jar sealer.  And guess what?  It worked wonderfully!  Plus, it was another great way to keep using the spent jar lids!  :)   I was accidentally lucky enough to have purchased a Food Saver with the extension for one.  Our combined effort put 11 pints of dehydrated sweet corn on the shelf.  I couldn't be happier.  Plus, it was an effortless and non-taxing project for during the work week.  It will definitely be an annual event should the supply chain present itself again.

At the beginning of the week, I made some beef stew and almost forgot my stash of corn, since this was my first year attempting it.  It was added in the broth stage and took approximately 20 to 30 minutes to rehydrate as the stew simmered way beyond that.  The corn tasted and had the texture of having just been sliced off the cob.  Even my hubby was impressed!  Now that is saying something!!  Also, one extra bonus...  Opening a jar is like smelling fresh sweet corn in the middle of summer.  A definite pick-me-up on a chilly fall or winter day.  :) 

Preservation of Plums

When I was growing up, my Dad loved his fruit trees.  Unfortunately, the trees never produced as much fruit or as healthy of fruit as he had hoped for.  It certainly didn't stop him from finding sources and bringing home loads of fresh fruits for us to enjoy.  Probably one of the main reasons I have to go to the apple orchards in the fall.  ;)   He often told the story of how my Grandma sent my Dad and his siblings to pick apples at a neighbor's house.  Even though the neighbor wasn't going to use the apples himself, my Grandma insisted on sending over fifty cents for the right to harvest the apples.  That was a long time ago...  I grew up to live in a very small rural town and work in the middle of the town I live in.  There are so many kind people with farms who extend the kindness of harvesting apples off their trees.  I guess those ideals are still alive and well in certain areas of America. And hey, those apples make the best pies, cobbler, and sauce!  :) 

My son and his wife purchased a small farm with two elderly apple trees.  In a good year, the number of apples can be overwhelming.  The fruit trees are definitely happy.  So, my son decided to plant some more trees... a pear, another apple, and a plum tree.  The pear is doing amazing, is doubling its production from last year, and the fruit should be ready to pick soon.  The apple hasn't produced yet but is steadily growing.  The plum tree decided this year was the year to have a crazy harvest.  It is a tiny tree barely taller than me, but it produced a 5-gallon pail and a half of produce.  If I could bottle the smell of those plums, the fragrance would knock your socks off!  Just splendidly plummy!!

It warms my heart for the kids to be expanding their farm in a self-sustaining way.  Since both of them were busy this year, I offered to help preserve the fruit.  Not gonna lie... It was a bigger production than I thought, but all went smoothly.

The first weigh in was for the jam... This kid doesn't mess with jelly.  lol  The grand total was 24 of the fruit jars and 10 pint jars.  If you haven't had plum jam, you are really missing out on a unique flavor.  It does sound like a lot until you start thinking of all the possibilities...  My daughter in law makes homemade ice cream.  Can you imagine a vanilla plum swirl?  I sure can!

   

With the jam numbers being pretty high, I moved on to dehydrating.  This used up 62 more plums.  

Dehydrating was a new experiment.  I rather liked the tart yet sweet product and found some recipes using rehydrated plums.   Dehydration definitely has possibilities.

 

My grandson has been doing his share of eating right off the tree.  After sampling one of the plums myself, I cannot blame him. ;)  My son and I pulled a few of the firm plums out for him to munch on in the coming weeks, and the remaining over ripe plums were turned into syrup.  Instead of straining the boiled plums, I used an emulsion blender and gave the syrup some texture.  Wow!  Even better than the jam in my opinion.

With the plums done for the year, the apples have started to fall from one of the older trees.  Although some will become animal feed, there were plenty for me to harvest.  Most were bigger than my hand and in great shape. :)  Not sure if they will become pies or sauce yet.  Which reminds me, I need to go back out tomorrow to scour for some more.  Most of the tree hasn't ripened yet.  I suspect these are falling from the very top.  And I'm hoping to get ahead of the huge harvest and not get taken off guard like with the plums. lol  What a blessing these trees are.  My Dad is watching their success... I am sure.   Now the kids have added grapes and blueberries to their fruit grove.   Wonderful times to come. :)

Harvesting Sweet Corn & Felting Sweaters

In the midst of my commission work posted on my "Sketches" blog, I am late blogging about some of the happenings from September and hope to get them caught up this week.  One of my first endeavors came from the cornfield during the first weekend of September... courtesy of my son. 

My little farmer boy planted a field of sweet corn on a vacant lot that we own in town.  (He has the best luck for not getting any hungry critters invading and stealing the harvest.)  To my surprise, he called me on my way home from the Edgerton Thresheree (promise to get those pics up this week) and told me that he was picking all the sweet corn.  Aaaaagh!  So, I put aside my afternoon work and began to shuck some corn.  Thirty-seven quarts later... I decided to throw in the towel.  After all, there is only three of us in the household.  And although we love corn, that figures to approximately 3 quarts a month.  I packed the quarts for freezing and can get two days worth of veggies from each one... plenty for our family!  After gifting a couple of grocery bags full to friends, setting some aside for the week, and coaxing the hutch bunny to eat a few small ears (how desperate it that?! LOL), we were still left with a third of the ears still in the trailer.  Thank heavens for the neighbors!  Farmer boy told them of his harvest, and they came over the next afternoon and carried them off to put up for the winter.   We fed the remnants to neighboring farm animals, so there wasn't waste. Yay!  It went so smoothly that one would have thought it was carefully planned. ;) LOL    

Winter sweaters from the thrift store... Yay!!   Along with wool clothing and jackets, wool sweaters are on my list.  Here are some of the sweaters (already felted) that I have accumulated this month.  They are felted in a hot wash and dried on high heat.  I try to wait until there are enough similar colors before doing a day of felting.    It is so cool to witness the transformation!  Trust me, it is a very addictive hobby.

I spent yesterday morning starting to organize part of my stash from the bins and mix in the new haul.  For easier storage, I decided to cut off the arms and wide waist bands, since those parts are used for different projects.   The sleeves even got a stapled label of what kind of animal fibers that they are composed of.  How's that for organization?  Wish I would have thought of that when I started building my stash last fall!  Aaaahhh... better late than never...

I have been so excited to have the opportunity in September to create some pieces that will be listed in my Etsy store for fall and winter.  Tomorrow's post will show how I encorporated a few of these upcycled sweaters into embellishing a new project. 

This is the first year that I will be able to spend the fall and winter creating upcycled and fiber art, along with my graphite work.  My list of projects and sketch books are full of ideas that have my mind spinning, but I think that I finally have a pretty good schedule going.  It is a crazy balancing act with all the different medias... just the way this multi tasker likes it!! :)

Preserving The Garden Produce

The garden vegetables have been rolling in.  Let the blanching and freezing begin! :)  I've been picking green beans for some time now, but they are starting to slow up a little after the heavy rains.  Although we have eaten them with dinners, I have still managed to blanch and freeze 4 quart bags full of them and might end up with a few quarts more.  My son only planted a few rows this year, so I think that they did pretty good.  This years garden was kind of experimental.  We tried a smattering of different things.  Then we can decide which items to put more in of next year, and where they will be placed.  The green beans are a hit, so there will definitely be more rows next year. 

The green peppers have been very sluggish.  The high wind storm really took its tole on them.  I find that the green bell pepper plants are a heartier variety for our soil.  The multi colored varieties are just sitting stagnant.  I have been chopping up those that were harvested and flash freezing them on a cookie sheet.  So far, I have filled 1 1/2 quart bags.  I hope that the plants will come out of their funk to produce a few quarts more.  I definitely will buy more of the green bell variety next year.  During the winter months, I add green peppers to a lot of my main dishes.  Yum!

I haven't planted jalapenos in years, but it sounded good when the kid and I were purchasing our plants.  The three little plants in our garden just love to grow!  Here is the first pickings.  My initial inclination was to freeze these little guys, but I have many other items to fill my freezer with before the snow flies.  So, my other option was to string and dry them.  Don't they look pretty?  I can't wait to pick some more.  They add some spice to my decorating as well! ;)

My greatest success so far was training my cucumbers to climb the corner trellis.  They just haven't wanted to do it in subsequent years.  The first ones that were picked were long and skinny.  I almost thought that they needed to sit on the vine longer, but after tasting one, I knew they were ready for a recipe.  There were three cucumbers in the first picking, so they were turned into bread and butter pickles.  Since there wasn't many cucumbers, I found this recipe to make a small batch in the microwave.  How crazy is that?  They were a hit with my family.  Next year the garden will see more cucumbers, and you'll find me canning some bread and butter pickles!  I hated these as a child but love them as an adult.  Mmmmm... :)

If you are interested in the recipe for the microwave bread and butter pickles, they can be found here at All Recipes.  They really taste great and come in handy for a quick batch. 

The tomatoes are just starting to turn a reddish orange color.  I only planted six of these.  My family is not big tomato eaters.  Salsa use to be a big hit, but even that has lost its appeal.  There are some squash vines growing like crazy and some eggplant.  We have never eaten egg plant, so it should be an interesting adventure.  The three plants are covered in flowers, and there are six baby eggplants already growing.  I will have to look around for some recipes. ;)   My rhubarb is having a long growing season with 6 quarts cubed in the freezer, and another pile of stalks waiting to be preserved.  I see some strawberry rhubarb freezer jam in my future... ;)