Growing up on a farm in Missouri meant every July there was a week or two of an overabundance of sweet corn. Being a fan of traditions and and holidays, sweet corn season makes a nice pop up celebration. You’re not sure when exactly it is going to happen, or how much you are going to have. Now the goal seems to plant enough so that even if the raccoons get into the sweet corn patch, there will still be some left to share. Generally that left our family with plenty of corn and some to give away to the neighbors, and led to dinners were we would see who could eat the most ears (spoiler alert, my dad always won).
Sweet corn season hits slowly for a few days, then the overabundance. About two weeks ago my parents had a little family party with the first of the sweet corn. A week later my dad texts that the raccoons didn’t get to the corn and he has a feed sack for me. Well for me and my sisters, but my older sister arrives on Monday night to drop off my niece and a feed sack of full of sweet corn (the niece wasn’t having any of it, so they didn’t keep much).
My estimate was 50 ears when the bag arrived at my house. The goal was to use it up before it went bad. Freezing would have been an excellent option, but the easy way out. Following are six options for using sweet corn (and yes the second option is technically a cop-out).
- Corn on the Cob
- Drop it off at your sister’s house
- Corn and Black Bean Salsa
- Corn Chowder
- Panna Cotta
- Corn Bread Cookies
Corn on the Cob
The old school way is sometimes best. I boiled four ears of corn and served them with butter (for Matt), butter and salt (for me). Matt said putting salt on your sweet corn is weird, so that’s another discussion. The niece refused corn, but was all for making and eating zucchini brownies.
My corn cooking method is: bring a pot of water to a boil, place ears in the boiling water with the lid on for 10 minutes. Remove corn with tongs, butter, salt, EAT!
Six ears down.
Drop it off at your Sister’s House
Bag up 20 ears of corn and drive them down to my younger sisters house for her and her husband to enjoy. Leave the corn even if your brother-in-law repeatedly says, “there is no way we can eat this much corn.”
Twenty-six ears down.
Corn and Black Bean Salsa
Dropping the corn off at my sister’s house gave me the inspiration to make her Corn and Black Bean Salsa. When Courtney was 10ish and in 4-H she did a demonstration at the state 4-H competition about how to make Corn and Black Bean Salsa. Anyway we ate a lot of corn and black bean salsa that summer leading up to her demonstration, so on occasion I’ll make a version based off of what I have in my house. I love it on greens for a salad or eaten with tortilla chips.
Corn and Black Bean Salad
Courtney’s official Recipe
2 cups corn
3/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 1/2 cup black beans
1/4 chopped red onion
Dressing:
3 T olive oil
Pinch of sugar
4 T lime juice
1/2 t ground cumin
2 T chopped fresh cilantro
salt and pepper to taste
Rinse corn and black beans and combine with chopped green pepper and chopped red onion. Combine dressing ingredients well and stir in with vegetables.
Corn and Black Bean Salsa
Beth’s pantry and fridge clearing version
6 ears of corn boiled and kernels cut off (I made this recipe very corn heavy, I’d generally suggest using less corn)
1 can of black beans rinsed and drained
1 white onion chopped
1 green bell pepper chopped
1 yellow bell pepper chopped
2 fresh jalapeños deseeded and chopped
3ish glugs of olive oil
3 caps of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
salt and pepper to taste
Combine all of the vegetables in a bowl, add all of the dressing ingredients over the vegetables and stir well. Taste to see if you need to add more spices. Cover and chill in the fridge.
Thirty-two ears of corn down.
Corn Chowder
Now it’s mid-July and 100 degrees outside, I’m 35 weeks pregnant, so I should stick with cool, light, salad type meals, right? Well my husband had my birthday present delivered early to our house and now I have my first beautiful enameled 8-quart dutch oven. Looks like I’ll be making corn chowder.
I followed the recipe at the end of this post by Sugar Spun Run. It turned out delicious, but it should definitely come with the *read all internet recipes thoroughly before you attempt to make them. I might be a pretty slow chopper, but it was obvious that her times don’t add up. I needed an hour to complete the recipe. I changed a few things, using an entire red pepper instead of a half, I already had cooked bacon, so I added that with the onion, used a couple of jalapeños instead of a poblano, and only 1 cup of cream. I also used an immersion blender instead of blending only half of the soup in a blender. It’s good to keep in mind that when cooking you don’t always need to follow the recipe exactly. Keep an eye on what you already have in your kitchen to keep it cheaper and have less waste. Baking, on the other hand, is a little more particular.
Forty ears of corn down.
Panna Cotta
I really wanted to make a dessert. After looking through lists online, I decided I wanted to make a sweet corn panna cotta and a cookie. The first thing I did was boil and cut off the kernels from the rest of the corn. I figured it would be easier to just be done with the preparation of the corn and I wanted to see if there were better ways to remove corn from the cob. I tried both the bunt pan method and the big/small bowl method at the kitchn.com. They weren’t life changing, but using the small bowl inside the big bowl left me with the smallest mess, and was the easiest to transfer.
Onto the panna cotta. I know I’ve never made panna cotta before, and I doubt I’ve ever eaten it, maybe watching one of Gordon Ramsey’s shows is the only reason I’ve heard of it, but I’m always looking for a reason to use my ramekins. Sweet Corn Panna Cotta with Blueberry Compote at Food & Wine was really easy to make. It did require a lot of bowls, utensils, and hands on time, but the recipe was simple to follow and the results were deliciously what I expected.
Forty-two ears of corn down.
Corn Bread Cookies
Last project was a cookie. I couldn’t find any recipe that used actual corn that I liked online so I set out to make my own. In my mind it was going to taste like a Peruvian humita, but I think I used too much corn meal and they tasted more like really sweet corn biscuits. Still good, but not exactly what I was looking for. I really like the natural sweetness of sweet corn, but the flavor itself might be too much to make my brain to think cookie over biscuit.
Corn Biscuit Cookies
preheat oven to 350 degrees
1 cup blended corn (about 4 ears of corn)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 t vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 t baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 cup flour
In a stand mixer or a bowl blend together the blended corn with the sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla and blend until fully incorporated. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet until fully combined. Spoon drop 1 rounded tablespoon onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes approximately 24 cookie/biscuits.
Final total of corn used is 46 ears. A pretty decent sweet corn season, but next year I will be freezing some to enjoy when its a bit colder outside.
Beth Bakes Midwest 
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