The Generosity of Strangers

We spent a week recently on Lopez Island, part of the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. We rented a cottage near the ferry terminal, brought a car and a lot of groceries, and had fun exploring the tide pools for nudibranchs and other sea life. With the exception of the ferry itself, it was a relaxing week. 

On one of our walks, we noticed a sign across the street from our cottage: "Yellow Plums. Pick 'em and Take 'em." We followed the signs and found a single tree laden with yellow plums. We waved to the owners, who stayed in their house, and picked a bunch. They were delicious. 

I took enough back to make a small crisp. I didn't have all the ingredients (like sugar or flour), but I had butter, and maple sugar oatmeal packets, so I mixed those up and sprinkled that over the top. For serving, we had some maple syrup to drizzle over the top. 

How nice of those people to share!

Cheese and...

...guava paste. Cheese and sweet papaya rolls. Cheese and plum jelly. Cheese and toast.

Bliss!

Fourth of July Plum Sauce

I've been waiting for a day when I had time to work on this plum sauce idea and, even though I have to work tonight, I have plenty of time during the day. So, after hanging up the flag outside, I got cooking!

I used the plum sauce recipe in the Ball Blue Book of Preserving but, since I was just using plum juice, I had to make a few changes to the recipe:

4 c. plum juice
2 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
1 c. cider vinegar
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic (farm share!) minced
1 T. ginger, minced
1 t. dried red pepper
2 T. mustard seed
1 T. kosher salt
1/4 c. powdered low-sugar pectin

The pectin was an afterthought. After reducing the sauce for an hour, and running the immersion blender through it, it still wasn't thickening up. So I thought about it and decided to try some of the low-sugar recipe pectin I had. One half of the package is about 1/4 cup. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the other half-package. (Note to self: use powdered mustard instead of the seeds, they don't blend well.)

I'm putting this into 4 ounce jars since I think that small amounts of plum sauce are more likely to get opened and used. Hopefully I'll take some to work tonight with chicken nuggets for people to share. We usually try to have a little pot luck on holiday shifts.

Happy 4th of July!

Plum Jelly

This morning we got up early and, since I didn't have to go to work, and the kids were asleep, I decided that now was the time to make that plum jelly. It doesn't take long if the juice has already been extracted! I used 4 cups of the juice, which is really thick and syrupy, with 6.5 cups of sugar and 1 pouch of liquid pectin. This yielded 8 cups of jelly (2 pints, 4 half-pints) and it's nice and tart even with the sugar added.

Now, if only I could figure out a plan for the rest of the juice. I have about 4 cups left. I found a recipe that called for plum juice and crystallized ginger, but I am wondering what other options I have. I suppose I could freeze the juice until I have other fruits to combine it with, but where's the fun in that?

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?