Saturday, September 3, 2011

Being Domestic - sorta

One of the pitfalls of renting a tiny split level home (in a 4-plex) is that there is hardly any room for storage.  We'd have food storage, if we had somewhere to put it.  Our kitchen is small.  Our bedrooms are small.  Every available closet shelf is used for storing things we don't need right now but might/probably need in the future.

In fact, Marshall doesn't even have access to his closet.  It is chock-full of crib parts and baby toys, boxes of clothes he doesn't fit in anymore, and other miscellaneous kid/baby-related items.

The sad thing is, I have gone through every closet in our house (except the linen closet in the hall - it's on my To-Do list) and thrown/given away TONS of things in the 2 1/2 years we've lived here.  I am constantly amazed at how much crap I find to through away each time I do it.  But, now we're at the bottom of the barrel.  I've gotten rid of everything I can think to get rid of.  I honestly about killed myself the last time I went through our storage cupboard under the stairs.  It's the hardest to go through.  You have to drag everything out, go through all the different boxes, then rearrange it and hope you end up with a little more space than you had before.

This process explains why every time food storage items go on sale (or Macey's has a case lot sale) Mike says "No, we don't have anywhere to keep it."  It makes sense, but I forget every year.

So, when we saw that corn was on sale for $14 for 48 ears at our local food co-op, I was surprised when Mike said "Let's do it.  We can freeze it for food storage."

What?!

Who are you and what have you done with my husband?

So that is how we spent this afternoon.  We blanched the ears of corn, took all the kernels off the cob, and bagged them into freezer bags.  I made 21 bags with 1 1/2 cups in it, and 1 bag with 2 cups.  33 1/2 cups of corn, and a newly cleaned out freezer, later, I now have plenty of corn to last me through the winter.  No more spending $1.50 on the cheap generic brand of corn that doesn't have a resealable bag and gets freezer burn 5 seconds after you open the thing.

I can't tell you how proud I am that I've finally done something "domestic" in preparation for winter.  If we had the stuff (and space) to can, I'd probably be doing that like crazy too.  Someday, someday.  When I have a house of my own with its own giant food storage area in the basement, then we'll see how much canning I can get done.  Until then, I'm going to have to be content with putting up corn in the freezer.  :)