Well, you've described how I use canned or frozen corn already (though I don't throw it into quite as many things unless I'm feeling in a particularly corn-craving mood), so hearing that the easy & obvious approach is actually correct is a big win.
As for the crab-corn chowder, well I'm a vegetarian, but that does bring up an amusing tale ...
In high school, although well before I became a vegetarian, I had already decided much earlier that I didn't eat crabs. On a school camping trip to Assateague Island (12th grade estuarine biology class), we caught a small callinectis sapidus ("Beautiful swimmer, delicious"), aka Maryland blue crab. One crab wouldn't be worth cooking, except that we realized that our exchange student from the Canary Islands had somehow not gotten around to trying crabs all school year, and was going to have to return home very shortly after the camping trip ended. So we decided to cook the crab.
A bunch of Maryland, crab-eating teenagers. One Maryland, crab-eating science teacher. And the one Marylander who didn't eat crabs was the only one confident that he knew how to cook the darned thing. Heaven knows I watched my father do it often enough (though of course I couldn't add beer to the water 'cause it was a school trip).
I improvised a miniature (single-crab sized) crab steamer out of bits from two mess kits and our teacher's coffee pot. I cooked the crab. Our exchange student ate the crab and pronounced it good. And I tried not to giggle at my "I can't believe Glenn, a Marylander, doesn't eat crabs!" classmates who had to turn to me to cook the crab. (In later years, retelling the story, I've given up trying not to giggle at my former classmates.)
Hmm. And it just occurred to me that that was long before I knew I could cook in general. Huh.
(Also on that camping trip:
Glenn: "This needs bay leaf." Another student: "Too bad we didn't bring any." Teacher: "There's a bay bush within fifty yards of camp." Another student: "Really? Where?" Teacher: "This is a biology field trip, right? You find and identify it." [sheepish looks] [five minutes later:] Another student: "I found it! It's that one over there. Here's your bay leaf."
Which reminds me that I need to answer Debbie Ohi's poll about memories of high school...)
(no subject)
As for the crab-corn chowder, well I'm a vegetarian, but that does bring up an amusing tale ...
In high school, although well before I became a vegetarian, I had already decided much earlier that I didn't eat crabs. On a school camping trip to Assateague Island (12th grade estuarine biology class), we caught a small callinectis sapidus ("Beautiful swimmer, delicious"), aka Maryland blue crab. One crab wouldn't be worth cooking, except that we realized that our exchange student from the Canary Islands had somehow not gotten around to trying crabs all school year, and was going to have to return home very shortly after the camping trip ended. So we decided to cook the crab.
A bunch of Maryland, crab-eating teenagers. One Maryland, crab-eating science teacher. And the one Marylander who didn't eat crabs was the only one confident that he knew how to cook the darned thing. Heaven knows I watched my father do it often enough (though of course I couldn't add beer to the water 'cause it was a school trip).
I improvised a miniature (single-crab sized) crab steamer out of bits from two mess kits and our teacher's coffee pot. I cooked the crab. Our exchange student ate the crab and pronounced it good. And I tried not to giggle at my "I can't believe Glenn, a Marylander, doesn't eat crabs!" classmates who had to turn to me to cook the crab. (In later years, retelling the story, I've given up trying not to giggle at my former classmates.)
Hmm. And it just occurred to me that that was long before I knew I could cook in general. Huh.
(Also on that camping trip:
Glenn: "This needs bay leaf."
Another student: "Too bad we didn't bring any."
Teacher: "There's a bay bush within fifty yards of camp."
Another student: "Really? Where?"
Teacher: "This is a biology field trip, right? You find and identify it."
[sheepish looks]
[five minutes later:]
Another student: "I found it! It's that one over there. Here's your bay leaf."
Which reminds me that I need to answer Debbie Ohi's poll about memories of high school...)