Corn and tomatoes and shortcake...OH MY!

It was supposed to be a terrible day today due to the most recent unfriendly tropical storm so it was inside today for this family.  So today we shucked, blanched, cut, and froze corn, made from scratch spaghetti sauce, and from scratch shortcake.  We were a busy little family.

We purchased 3 dozen ears of corn from a local farmer the other day and planned to blanch and freeze the corn for us to eat during the winter.  Because we've never done this before, we had to scour the web for some ideas.  After consulting several websites on "how to" prep the corn, this is what we did:

Kernels from approximately 6 ears of corn

1. Shuck the corn.  3 dozen ears is a lot of shucking...so I did it the night before while we watched Battlestar Gallactica (we're trying to finish the series in order to have a Battlestar Gallactica finale party with a few friends - but more on that some other time).
2. Boil water and put in the corn on the cob.  Everything I read made it clear that in order to make sure the corn is blanched well, the water needs to be returned to boiling within a minute or so of putting in the corn.  If it doesn't, you've either added too much corn or need to wait a bit between corn batches.  
3. Let the corn boil for 4 minutes.  Remove with tongs and immediately place in an ice bath.
4. Put corn in ice bath - we cleaned our sink VERY well, filled with water and ice and used that over and over.
5. Once the corn has cooled you can start to cut it off the cob.  You can also freeze it on the cob, but that method takes up a LOT of space.  So we cut our corn off and put in freezer bags. 

Project #2 was done by Al - he made true homemade spaghetti sauce from our Roma's.  Unfortunately, we haven't had a super productive year for tomatoes (part of the problem was Irene - which destroyed our plants).  So we really only got one small batch of tomatoes which was enough to make 2 meals worth of sauce.  I can't tell you what he does, because it's somewhat of a family secret...he might tell you if you ask...but I'm not about to blow the lid off that one.

So, after Al decided we'd indeed have the spaghetti with Italian sausage for dinner, I thought, "We should use some of our fresh-frozen strawberries (picked earlier this summer) and make some shortcake.  I am not a fan of those little spongy shortcake things they sell at the grocery store.  We didn't have any Bisquick (which I've used before to make strawberry shortcake).   I did a quick search and found THIS recipe.  It looked more complicated than some of the other recipes, but the reviews were fantastic (for the most part) and the title said they were "perfect" so how could I resist?   This recipe was super easy!  And SOOOO delicious.  Seriously.  But, it also has a bazillion calories...so I modified it a bit and cut the shortcakes in half so the recipe could serve 12 not 6.  I also didn't add as much sugar to the strawberry and blueberry fruit mixture that I made.  Instead of homemade whipped cream (which Al is not a fan of) we took a pre-dinner walk to Stewarts to get some of their "Real Whipped Topping." 

Conner helping measure out the blueberries...of course he ate most of them!

Perfect Berry Shortcake.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Kellen was a good helper, too!  He stayed relatively happy the whole time.  It was overall a pretty productive day at our house.  Rainy days are perfect for cooking and playing together as a family. 

What are your favorite rainy day family things to do?