08 March, 2013

Popcorn, Little Red Hen Style

This was mostly Victor's project, though Charlotte did help. We bought those little novel greenhouses for kids at the end of season at Tractor Supply, $1.00 for each of them. Though my hopes were low, we planted the corn in Aug. & watched it grow. They were excited & dug where I told them to transplant it & there was a little square of corn. Too our delight it started to tassel out & the cobs got thick & juicy. Some of them & some were too small to amount to much.

I disremember when we harvested, early Oct. I think. We had a very wet year last year, but we had 10 or 12 ears from it. We picked them into that plastic blue tray & they stayed on the kitchen corner for a couple of months until they migrated out onto the school table where they sat for a couple of more months. By this time we had the wood stove going pretty regularly & I knew they were dry, but as it gets so dry in our living room I figured all of the moisture content required in the kernels for popping had evaporated. When we got low on store popcorn though, I figured nothing was gained if not tried. SO:

They shucked.

T
There was so much chaff I deemed it wise to try out winnowing so as to not set our air popper on fire.


The tension rises... does it work?

Popping! The whole batch popped up but for some reason it doesn't spill out of the popper. I had to rock it back & forth a bit so the bottom layer wouldn't scorch so much. We put on a lot of butter & enjoyed. And the best part was discovering how easy it was. The wet summer did help; I've grown corn before w/ discouraging results but this was theirs & I was glad it turned out for them & my pessimistic predictions fell flat. Give it a try, it makes the winter cozier somehow & is a chore no one minds doing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi I found you over at joannes blog, Oh that looks fun :)