Processing Plums

I've been inundated with fall fruit.  Sadly my family are not fruit eaters.  And fall fruits are especially challenging.  No one in my household will voluntarily nosh down on  a big bowl of plums or pears. But I'm cautiously optimistic about apples. 

Today's focus is on plums. 

 I find a plum here and there delicious. But it isn't one of my go to fruits and it has a very distinctive taste.  Which means one or two plums a season works for me.  My neighbors are very successful urban farmers and they are also very generous.  So now I'm trying to figure out what to do with a large bushel of plums.  Whipping up a batch of plum apple crumble is out of the question because I would be the only one eating it.  And when I looked up plum jelly it involved straining it through a cheese cloth. So that's out. Also this would involve canning.  And while I'm not adverse to canning, I don't really need 16 jars of plum jelly in my cupboard.  I suspect my neighbors wouldn't be thrilled with plum jelly either.  Especially the ones who are giving me plums because they've got so many. Which brings me to my plum processing adventure.  I decided to make plum sauce.  The kind you eat with egg rolls. 

So the first thing I needed to do was process these beauties.

This was kind of fun.  And gross.  I blanched the plums so the skins would peal easily.  And then I harangued my son into helping me peel.  Plums are squishy, sticky, and soft. And the texture is not fun to roll around in your hand while you pull the skin off.  The really cool thing is how much natural purple die is in their skins.  I thought long and hard about keeping the skins for some kind of tie-die project I could do with my beaver scouts.  And then when I was scrubbing purple plum die off everything in my kitchen I decided maybe next year.

Then I pitted them, cut them up, and boiled them.

Once they reduced to a mushy consistency I started adding plum sauce ingredients.

But not before I took some of the processed plums and put them into a container that I've got sitting in the freezer.  Because this recipe was inspired by four different recipes I found on the internet.  And I wasn't confident it would work out.  So I wanted some reserve plum mush to play with again.

Here's what I added.



Sadly, this photo is not clear.  So I'll spell it out: reduced salt soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and some sweet chili sauce. Oh, and red onions. A third of a cup of diced red onions to be exact.

 It worked out okay.  It was very thick.  Next time I'm going to strain it.  Also it had a bitter zing to it which was delicious with pork dumplings.  In fact the whole thing rocked with the pork dumplings.  But it didn't pair as well with egg rolls.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the commercial yummy that comes in a little orange packet when we order Chinese.

My attempt at plum sauce take 1:

2 cups processed plums
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
1/3 cup red onions
1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
4 dashes of sweet chili sauce
a sprinkle of red chili flakes

Bring to a boil and blend with an immersion blender.
Let cool.  Serve.

Turns out this stuff freezes very well.

There's Something About a Mountain...

I was lucky enough to do a road trip through the Rockies this summer and the scenery was gob-smack amazing. (It's a term.)  These giant mountains loomed on the horizon, so large you felt like you could reach out and touch them.

I found myself in a constant state of admiration and surprisingly, extreme calm.  Who knew dramatic, aggressive crags were relaxing?

Not only did I feel very calm under these ragged peaks, they inspired the kind of reverence you usually feel in a very large place of worship.

The scale of these geological marvels left me in awe.  I think it might have something to do with how they touch the sky, and how very close you can get to them.

I've dubbed them Mother Nature's Cathedrals.  I'll leave you with one more...

Aaaand, one more,,,