Monday, June 28, 2010

Suburban Gleaning

We went to visit my parents in RI over the weekend. As we drove to their house, 2 lots away I noticed red berries growing in a vacant lot. As soon as I could I went over there, carrying a container (hopeful, aren't I?), to see if they were something good to eat. To my surprise, they were black raspberries! The unripe ones had caught my eye, but there was a good amount of the ripe ones for us all to share.

The next day, I convinced my father that I could do something with the plums growing on his (mostly decorative) plum trees. He doesn't spray them or anything, and 2 years ago we had harvested a bunch and I extracted the juice and a lot of unmentionable critters. I attempted to make jelly with that small amount of juice but it came out more like fruit leather, and that was the end of that. This year we put down a tarp and with 3 adults and the occasional help from the 5 year old, harvested a LOT of plums. These were then washed, and I sliced each and every one, only keeping the ones without any of those aforementioned critters. Even with throwing a lot away, I filled a big pot with plums and still had an entire large bowl full of plums (which I eventually tossed, there were just too many). After boiling, straining, adding more hot water, straining some more, I ended up with about 2 quarts of juice. That's a lot of juice! I want to make plum jelly but I am also hoping to use some of the juice to make a plum sauce or BBQ sauce, but all the recipes I'm finding are for the pulp, not the juice. Can anyone help?

1 comment:

  1. We have four ornamental plum trees, one of which produces a lot of small fruit. I cook them down, strain out the pits & pulp, sort through the pulp to remove all the pits, mix the pulp back into the juice, and make the best plum jam I've ever tasted. It's a lot of work, but is so worth it.

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