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Corn for breakfast~


In my vegetable garden a mere month ago, "the best was yet to come." But now it's that special time in New England "for which the first was made." (Robert Browning applied today)
~~~~~
The garden is bursting with sustenance ripe for the picking. Along with early apples and pears, I pick corn, cukes and summer squash. Potatoes and carrots are ready to dig while yellow beans still dangle from bushy plants. It's a glorious abundance for which I'm grateful. There are beets and butternut squash too. And broccoli.

My husband does the prep work in late March and the planting soon after. Then, apart from weeding and watering, he turns the garden over to me.

"I grow 'em," he says. "You pick 'em."

It always sounds like a good deal during the cold, muddy spring. He forks under the winter rye and culls rocks from cold soil, his breath a cloud I see through the window as I drink tea and read .

But now I feel a pressure standing among such bounty in the summer sun. We can't eat all we grow, and I hate to waste "good food," something my father constantly admonished against.

So neighbors get homegrown deliveries. I give bags full to the local Senior Center. My son's friends are mandated to take veggies home when they stop by. And still there is more "good food" than one small family can eat.

One answer is to can or freeze it. I've done that. I don't relish the job, which creates a different pressure in December anyway. With the wood stove lit and a snowstorm raging, I want spaghetti and meatballs or beef stew, not summer squash and yellow beans. I end up throwing out what remains when the next garden begins to produce.

Each year we plant less, give away more, freeze some.

And for one late summer month I eat corn on the cob for breakfast-- leftover from the night before-- cold without butter and salt. I pick ears for a mid afternoon snack to eat raw from the garden, sweeter and crunchier than when cooked. I add corn kernels to salads. Today I sautéed onions, green pepper and corn-- all from the garden-- added black beans and a spicy sauce mix, which only I will eat . . . and eat . . . and eat. Waste not, want not.

"I wonder what corn muffins would be like with real corn kernels added," I said to my husband this morning after I'd picked an armload of tomatoes, a fistful of beans and six ears of corn.

"They wouldn't be real corn muffins," he said.

"That's the point, but I bet they'd be good."

"I wouldn't eat them," he said, definitive as always.

But I would, I think. And if he's not going to eat them I might just spice them up with a little onion as well, maybe bake a cornbread in a cast iron skillet, and eat that for breakfast-- warm and with butter.
~~~~~
I hope I never lose sight of how fortunate I am to have "good food" in such abundance.

Comments

Voyager said…
I think corn muffins with real corn would be good. Enjoy your abundance.
V.
Anonymous said…
I love cold corn for breakfast! But I have to have butter, salt, and pepper or it's not a meal.
Jo said…
I love cold corn with butter, salt and pepper as well. Gosh, I thought I was the only one.

Okay, now I'm getting hungry. The corn muffins with real corn and onions(!) sound wonderful.

Could you make pasta sauce with the tomatoes, and freeze that? That would be yummy.
Rick Bylina said…
Mmmmmmm. Corn. My garden doesn't produce good corn. This morning: 6 cukes, 42 okra, 6 regular and 76 cherry tomatoes, a gallon bag of beans, 3 eggplant, handful of basil, 12 green peppers, and several stalks of swiss chard.

But we need rain. I'm tired of watering every day a different section of the yard. Ugh.

Off to the store to buy some corn, me mouth is watering.

-rick bylina
http://muse-needed.blogspot.com/
Janice Thomson said…
There's something about eating one's own veggies from the garden.

I often have to give away tomatoes. It's amazing how many you get off one plant.
I too am so very thankful for the abundance of food in the garden - and for the beauty-full flowers too.
I'll be over in a flash for some real corn muffins...
Ruth L.~ said…
Tim and Josie~ Funny, I didn't think anybody else would eat cold corn on the cob. I was wrong. I does sound better with butter and salt and pepper, but butter . . .I could eat that straight from my fingers. I'm better of not going there.

Josie, I do make tomato sauce and apple sauce. simmer and mash is my style, but when I have to cut, par boil for a very specific time, then "submerge immediately" in ice water , then . . . Yuck. I rather give them away.

Rick~ Your garden sounds very productive. What do you do with it all?

Janice~ You just motivated me. I'm going to finish folding some clothes and go to the kitchen. :>)
Dawn said…
I'm missing my Midwest garden and even the abundance of zucchini! Dixie Crossroads, a favorite restaurant down here, makes the best corn fritters with real corn and sprinkled with confectioners sugar. Sooooo good! And I have a delicious recipe for zucchini rounds that calls for parmesan cheese and Bisquick and fry in a skillet. And mozarella cheese with tomato slices and basil with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and olive oil....I miss my fresh produce! And our home canned tomato juice and green beans....

Enjoy! Enjoy!

Dawn
Ruth L.~ said…
Dawn~
I had corn simmering as I read your post.I'm going to see what I can concoct for cornbread deluxe.

You sound, if not homesick, then a little culture sick, or maybe just hungry. :>)

You almost make cooking all the produce sound fun. I do something similar with summer squash that you do with zucchini.

Maybe I'll stay off my laptop and cook up a storm . . . maybe.

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