I tried your method of steaming my corn on the cob to freeze and look forward to the taste this winter. Also if you are concerned about taking up too much space in the freezer and prefer to cut the corn off the cob to freeze, try cutting it off before blanching. Not only do you have space to blanch more corn at one time but you are not tempted to handle the hot corn. Suggestion given to me by long time Iowa corn farmers who really know their corn.

Oh thank God I am in a beef-raising county and there are little local abattoirs. Several of them show up at Farmer's Market on Saturdays, but in wintertime...you gotta drive there. Your post got me to drooling. There is a richness to meat simmered with the bones in, and it comes from the marrowfat of the bone. I used to be able to identify how good a cut of meat was at a market by looking at the slice of bone in it. Now, if one goes to a supermarket, the evidence has been surgically removed! When I get the creatively cut roasts home I ask my dh the butcher and often as not, the store meat cutters have hedged a little moving down the muscles to include parts they shouldn't and leaving out parts they should have included. He just got back from a visit with his 80 something year old uncle who also worked many years in the family abattoir. They both tilt over sideways in the same direction and they have come to the conclusion it was from decades of hoisting halves of beef carcasses over one shoulder in the days before cryovac and primal cuts. Enjoy your booty.

Hi Everybody, First, just to be clear Saltpetre (Saltpeter in the US) is NOT Prague Powder, PP#1 is a 6.25% mixture of SODIUM NITRITE. Saltpeter is POTASSIUM NITRATE (sodium vs. potassium, nitrite vs. nitrate). Frank is correct, Potassium Nitrate is not used very much any more, that is why Prague Powder is also known as "modern cure" and "pink curing salt". So, nothing wrong with using Saltpetre. You can get it at an old style druggist. If not, you can order it overnight from most major drug stores. I ordered it from Walgreen's, they sell the Humco brand using the chemical name of Potassium Nitrate. If you ask for saltpetre, any druggist under the age of 60 will probably look at you like you are nuts. Ask them to look it up in their computer. It is NOT food grade, which means it does not get inspected by the USDA for consumption, but it is produced in a clean chemical process. Everybody uses it, though if you call Humco, they will tell you that they can't endorse it for curing meat (with a wink). The chemical reaction that occurs has been known for years; the Nitrate in Potassium Nitrate breaks down into Nitrites due to enzymes and bacteria, which in turn create nitric oxide, which is what binds to the hemoglobin molecule in the blood in meat and keep it pink. This same reaction occurs naturally in the body through breathing and the cardio vascular process. If there is a problem getting nitric oxide into the blood extremities lose their pink color and turn gray. So most modern cures that require short curing times rely on a Prague Powder #1, which uses Sodium Nitrite to skip the step of going fron Nitrate to Nitrite. You also need less chemical to get the same cure, so DO NOT SUBSTITUTE IN RECIPES WITHOUT CORRECTION!. If you were curing sausages that need months to cure, you use a different formulation that has both sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate. The nitrite goes to work fast, while the nitrate does the normal breakdown over time into nitrite and then nitric oxide (this is PP#2). Keep in mind that the added function of the nitrates/nitrites is as a preservative. So the meat can be kept longer without the bad bacteria giving it their "funk". :) That's the start of the process, along with salt, good bacteria and mold, that allows raw meat to turn into dry cured sausages like salami without refrigeration. So if you want to do this in the future, just order from any spice house or sausage supply online, compare prices, and order some Praque Powder #1 or "pink salt". The remainder above the 6.25% of Sodium Nitrite is just table salt. They die it pink so that you don't mistake it for regular salt. Since you use so little, a 4oz bag goes a long way. And if you want to experiment, you can use any leftover saltpeter to make smoke bombs, flares, and gunpowder. ;) Hope this helps a little :)

hard boll makes meat tough. If you cook it for too many hours and hours it will disintegrate to just meat strings. I put mine into my Le C dutch oven with enough water to just cover and a quartered onion and the flavor packet....bring it to a simmer and put the whole thing into the oven at about 212 ( half way between 225 and 200) and cook it 4 or 5 hours. Then I take it out and put it on a burner and add my potatoes carrots and when they are nearly done 20 to 30 minutes, I add a quartered cabbage! Ummmm!!!!