Plum Crazy

So, I haven’ t blogged lately, mostly because I’ve been going crazy with all the things to do and projects started!! I’ve been having fun, getting in shape and working all at the same time!  I am pleased with the way the body fat has melted away from just working around the yard and garden!  We are almost done with the chicken coop, good thing since the chicks arrived on Saturday!  They are sooooo adorable!  We each named one.  My little girl is Mildred aka Millie she is an Americana and will lay blue green eggs! Mary named the otherAmericana- Darling.  She is a sweet chick!  And Keith named the Barred Rock Lucy.  She will give us brown eggs!  They are already enjoying life on he river.

We’ve also been cureing the black walnuts.  It is a process! Now I understand why they are so expensive in the stores!  I will have a whole blog page shortly with picturess on the process of curing walnuts.

And then there’s the fruits and veggies.  Never before have I been so blessed to have the abundance of fruits and vegetables I graciously receive every day!  My dilemma is finding ways to cook, cure, preserve, bake all of it.  Our neighbor has two bountiful plum trees so she brought me a big bag of plums.  Of course we started munching on them but you can only eat so many fresh plums, so I started to look at recipes. I found lots of recipes for plum jam. I had never tasted plum jam before so I decided to try my hand at making it!  I now like it second to blackberry preserves!  Below you will find the process for making plum jam.  I will be setting up a separate page on the blog for the recipes so you can come back to get them later!  Any comments after you try a recipe would be appreciated!

 

Missy’s Plum Jam (makes about 4 jars)

4 lbs of plums cut in chunks – stone removed***

2 cups of sugar

Lemon juice

Cook the plums over high heat in an enamel pot. squeeze a half of lemon over the fruit.  When the fruit starts to break down, slowly add the sugar.  You can use a potato smasher to help break down the fruit.  Continue stirring and cooking the fruit Until it begins to boil and thicken… And then cook it some more!

Funnel cooked jam into prepared jars (I sterilize the Jars and lids in boiling water). Wipe the top of the jar clean, place lid and ring on jar.  Once all the jars are filled, put jars back in boiling water (jars must be covered with the boiling water) leave in for 10 minutes.  Remove using a jar remover.  Use caution as the jars are extremely hot.  Make sure you grab below the ridge on the jar.  Sealed jars will pop as they begin to cool, this means they are sealed.  These can sit on the shelf.  If the jar does not seal, place in the refrigerator for use.

*** To remove the stone, there are 2 methods.  1.)  Just cut chunks around the stone.  This method does waste some of your fruit.  2.) Cut the fruit in half and remove the small stone with a paring knife.