Freezing Corn, Canning Beans - And Mama Crowder's Squash Casserole

The July garden starts the cycle of freezing corn and canning beans. And lots and lots of squash.

Corn Freezing Days are drop everything else for corn days. We are all about the corn. The two main things are 1) Silver Queen and only Silver Queen 2) Daddy oversees all aspects of corn. Daddy has a special relationship with corn which includes whispering in it's ears. There are many details to corn freezing the Hunt way which you can read about on the July 7, 2010 post.

So mid July we gathered in Lattimore to freeze corn. This starts with picking and shucking. The shuckers sit in a circle under a tree in the yard to shuck and silk before bringing the sweet tender corn inside. When it was all said and done about 500 ears were picked, shucked, silked, washed, blanched, cut, and bagged into 65 pints that were carefully carried to Mama's basement freezor. A few days later about 200 more ears of corn appeared at my house in Shelby and so now there are 25 pints in my own freezor. Nothing feels better than knowing there is silver queen in the freezor.

Canning beans followed close on the heels of corn freezing. This process starts with planting little white half runners and then picking them at the exact right moment.

Like on corn days, a group gathers outside in the yard to start the process. Beans are looked, strung and snapped into bite sized pieces. Snappers and stringers are careful to remember Mama Crowder's advice "not to include any tough shucky ones". Nobody wants to bite down on a shucky bean.

The day we canned beans, we had several helpers outside in the circle including Casey, Connie, Dad, Ivan, Gustavo and me. The conversation is always interesting and includes English, Spanish, and Spanglish. There's something really relaxing about conversation in a circle, under a tree with a cool breeze, smelling the fresh beans while everybody methodically strings and snaps.

Inside the house the beans are washed, blanched, and packed into mason jars which are then filled with hot water. Mama adds about a tsp of salt to each jar, then runs a knife into the jar to make sure all the bubbles come to the top before she tightens the lids. Then she measures exactly two inches of water in her huge pressure cookers and puts 7 quarts into each cooker. She always makes sure the jars aren't touching which is pretty tricky. The other tricky thing is cooking the jars of beans under pressure which includes hissing and timing and other things that I don't really like to do. But I do like Mama's fresh canned green beans.

Daddy helps by making lunch for everybody which is sometimes fried livermush sandwiches and sometimes the best pimiento cheese you ever ate. (recipe on June 26, 2010 post). Or one of my favorite summer meals - a homemade biscuit with a fresh slice of tomato and a little piece of bacon. With a fresh picked ear of corn and cold juicy canteloupe. Day law as Mama Crowder would say!

And speaking of Mama Crowder. Squash is plentiful this time of year and we eat it all kinds of ways - fried, stewed, sauteed with boneless chicken. (Recipes on July 4, 2010 and July 7, 2010 posts) But something I was hungry for recently was Mama Crowder's Squash Casserole.

Mama Crowder's Squash Casserole

Mama Crowder's Squash Casserole will remind you of Thanksgiving Dressing because it includes cornbread and onions. It's almost a meal in itself because it also includes sausage. Mama Crowder liked using pork for seasoning. She always did like pig better than cow.

So I found Mama Crowder's Squash Casserole recipe which I wrote down years ago on 2 index cards while she gave me her directions. And I quote:

1 lb Jenkins Hot Sausage
3 Cups Cooked squash (cooked in salted water till tender - save juice)
3 Cups course cornbread crumbs - toasted good
(while cornbread is hot, crumble into big mixing bowl and mash in a 1/4 stick butter)
1 1/3 cup chopped onion
2 eggs, slightly beaten with fork

Fry sausage well done. Add enough squash juice to wet the cornbread good. Add squash, onions and sausage to cornbread. Add dash of salt and pepper. When sausage mixture is fairly cool add the two beaten eggs.

Mix together with hands using enough squash juice to make a print when you press on it with the back of a spoon. You don't want it too soupy or two dry.

Pour mixture into a greased casserole dish. Start at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes and then reduce to 350 for 15-20 minutes.

When it's half done, you can crumble cracker crumbs on top.