Celia. Somebody. Helllllllllllp!!!!

The scenario. I'm home alone, with my wife gone up to Oregon for two weeks.
The neighbor comes over with a big bag of ripe plums, and I mean ripe. I was eating them as fast as I could, but I couldn't keep up, and they were really starting to break down.
What to do?

My first thought was to make a plum crisp, by pitting the plums, mixing the resulting puree with brown sugar, pouring into a buttered baking pan, and topping with a streussel type crust. So I did that, well, part of the way anyway, this morning. I pitted the plums, and everything, skins and all, went into a big mixing bowl, and I added brown sugar to taste, with the thought that I'd get to the topping later. In the interim, I ran into said neighbor, and thanked him for the plums, and told him how delicious they were. Bad move. He showed up with another bag this afternoon!
Two thirds of them were way past the eating stage, so I processed those and added them to the bowl from this morning. Now there's way too much for a crisp.

To make matters worse, I talked to my wife, and told her of my plans to make the crisp, and she told me I should've removed the skins!
I suppose I could run the whole bowl through my food mill to remove the skins, but then what?

Should I punt the crisp idea and make preserves instead? I've got probably a half gallon of plum puree. And will the fact that they've been sitting, mixed with sugar in the fridge overnight impact the final product? Is it even doable?

I've never made preserves before.

I will be eternally grateful for any guidance you can give me.

Hi John

1) Plum desserts CAN include the skins according to my wife. So use some of it to make your crisp. The skins give a tangier flavor and chewing them is no big deal.

2) Personally I would take the leftover plums and strain them. In Japanese Cooking they use "plum sauce" to serve with breaded meat cutlets. You could Google this. Both Chinese and Japanese cooking includes pork with plum sauce. I can't remember the name of the special crumbs that are used to bread the meat (just came to me. PANKO) but it is a great combination. The only bad part is 1) you probably need to keep it in the fridge and 2) you are only going to be able to use a couple of tablespoons per pork chop.

Frank

Make Plum Wine!

John,

I'm no expert on stonefruit, but I did have a look at a couple of resources for you.

1. you can freeze plum puree. My freezer book says cook in a minimum amount of water with sugar to taste, then pass through a sieve or food mill. Freeze in rigid containers, leaving 3/4 inch headspace, seal and freeze for up to 6 months. That way you've got portioned amounts for future plum crumbles.

2. Recipe I've found for plum jam :

4lb plums
1 cup water
3lb sugar

Remove stones and put into large saucepan with water. Simmer until plums are tender. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Boil rapidly for about 10 to 20 minutes until "setting point" is reached. Pour into sterilised jars, label and water process (ie. put the sealed jars into a big pot of hot water and boil them up for about 10 - 15 minutes). I actually think you could probably freeze the finished jam as well, which would make it easier than all the sterilising.

Will keep looking !

Celia

PS. I think it should be fine to freeze, even if it's sat in the fridge overnight.

1. Plum Butter.
2. Prunes.

rwj

John,
I had a bumper crop of Santa Rosas this year. I spent 4 weekends canning - whole spiced plums, preserves, more preserves. I made sundried plum halves and prunes. I made plum crisp. In none of these do I make puree or remove the skin.
For preserves, I more or less follow the Ball recipe and use pectin, but a bit less sugar than called for, along with a bit of lemon juice. Remind me to bring you a jar of preserves!

Make Plum Wine!

I'm with Howie on this one. But, HURRY, the plums should be ripe, but not mushy! Though, I must admit, my first homemade wine EVER was made with plums from a tree I didn't know was on my property. Before I cut it down, I decided to use the fruit to make plum wine. About half the batch was a little "past their prime" (what did I know). Call it serendipity but, It was the best plum wine I ever made. That tree is still in my yard on the edge of my property.

You'll need about 6 lbs per gallon. GO FOR IT!

Can't wait for my neighbor to give me plums this year. He come over last year with a bucket full. I washed, sliced and cooked them a little in simple syrup. Then froze them in Zip Lock bags. We enjoyed them with breakfast this past winter.
They were, however, firm and juicy. Of course we ate a lot of them, as well.

Well.
Thanks everyone, for all the suggestions.

I decided to make preserves. I'm not sure about the results just yet. I followed the directions pretty carefully, except I dialed back the sugar some.
I gave the plums a boil, added some liquid pectin, boiled for another minute, then ladled the preserves into the hot, sanitized jars. Once sealed, I submerged them in water and boiled for ten minutes, again, per the instructions.

I had some leftover and I made a crisp with that. It was delicious with some freshly whipped cream.

I left the preserves out on the countertop for 24 hours. They don't appear as set to me as I would like, but I did keep a small, test ramekin aside, which I put in the fridge. Upon taste testing yesterday, I pronounced the finished product tasty. The contents of the ramekin are somewhere between runny, and just set. Definitely clings to the spoon.
Whatever the final result (I've put the jars in the fridge now in the hopes that they will thicken up a bit) I have a product I can use, plus the experience was worth it.

Thanks for the encouragement.
How soon can I open one of the jars and begin enjoying the product? It should be ready to go, right?

How soon can I open one of the jars and begin enjoying the product? It should be ready to go, right?

Absolutely!

Yum!

How soon can I open one of the jars and begin enjoying the product? It should be ready to go, right?

Ten minutes ago.

Good on you, John! Lightly set is cool - you get so many more uses out of it that way! What I've learnt recently is that how hard it sets is a result of the pectin plus the sugar, so if you cut the sugar back in a recipe, it won't set as hard.