Garden to Kitchen Experiments

Last spring (2016), I planted some lovely corn. Some of it was a purplish large corn like and Inca corn. Some was very tiny little red Strawberry Corn. And some was a kind of multi-color small corn. It was supposed to be some kind of popping corn, but none of it was suitable for eating fresh. After harvesting, drying and popping, I found that the corn was not consistent enough to get a good popping going. This left me with about a quart of kernels and no real idea of what to do with them.
Today I decided to grind them with my grain grinder to make polenta. This turned out to be a pretty good plan. The corn ground up nicely. I mixed it all together so that the big fat corn was in with the tiny red corn. All seemed fine and happy.
I started using some of this ground corn to make a polenta to see how it did. What I found was the home grown corn did not have as much starch as commercial ground corn. And the skin, which had all the color, was pretty tough. It took about 1/2 cup of my corn, 2 cups of water, some salt and about a tablespoon of regular ground corn to make a decent polenta texture.
After cooking and letting it set, the mass was kind of soft but you could cut it with a knife into portions. I was mostly disappointed in the flavor. No corn taste. Very bland. Lots of fiber from the skin, though. This made it kind of chewy.
I boosted the flavor with a little bit of duck fat from our Thanksgiving dinner and a bit more salt. Not as healthy, but made it worthy of eating it.
So in the final analysis, I have to say that growing the little Strawberry corn was fun and pretty but kind of useless. We are back to the MaryAnn and Ginger comparisons. The really pretty stuff is not very useful. There are breeds of corn that are specific for popping, there are hulless varieties and corn that is good for eating right off the plant. There are some that are best for grinding into flour or meal. I definitely had fun, but will not plant these again.
Now I have to figure out what to do with a quart of ground corn. Birdseed? I don't have chickens right now, but I think they would have loved it.