Freezing Canned Corn

Since I'm on my meal planning kick and a lot of the meals I have planned are about rice and beans I started to look into some other things I could do with them. One thing that seems to taste good and is pretty cheap is corn.

You have to understand, though, that I am NOT a corn person! I remember as a child having this silly fear of eating corn on the cob and having my teeth fall out.

I have overcome my silly fear (at least in so much as I will eat corn mixed into something -- still not off the cob) though, and I mixed some corn into our Rice and Bean Stoup (I'll post my recipe at the end ... it is modified from the $5 dinner one).

When we were at Costco buying the corn I saw how much cheaper it was to purchase the BIG (4 pounds 11 ounces!!!) of corn rather than the 8 smaller (read -- normal sized) cans. I figured I could probably portion out the corn and freeze what we were not going to use.

I did just that. After reading on the internet about how I should drain the liquid from the can, rinse the corn and then I could individually store portions I went to work. David helped me out and he was super good at getting all of the air out of the baggies that we were using.

I don't know if it will actually work, but only time will tell. If it does work then I'm saving a TON of money. And if it doesn't -- I'm only out $3.

Here is the original recipe I started to follow and below is what I ended up with.

Rice and Bean Stoup
1/2 pound of ground beef
1/2 cup of red kidney beans
1/2 cup of black beans
1/2 cup of corn
1/2 cup of green beans
1 small can of tomato sauce (I would like to use at least 2 next time I do this)
1 small can of water (I did this to supplement my lack of sauce, I probably would not include it next time)
I package of taco seasoning
1 bag of success minute rice

My ground beef was already cooked from the night before, but obviously if yours isn't that would be the first step in the directions.

After the ground beef is cooked mix in the kidney beans, black beans, corn and green beans. I just left the burner on low to warm all of this up together. I then added the tomato sauce, water and taco seasoning. I warmed all of this up and set it to the side.

At the same time I was mixing all of the other stuff together I had a pot of water going and threw in my minute rice.

Once everything was ready I put some of the rice in the bottom of the bowl and then scooped my bean mixture (I used a spoon with slits in it to reduce some of the liquid) on top. It was delicious and definitely something we will be having again in the future!