More plums than we can eat

Hi all.

My plum tree has produced a bumper crop. I turned my back for two days while we went away, and I've come back to find plums all over the ground. I've collected up the ones that are perfectly good, and filled a 5 litre pot with them.

The tree is still packed full of ones that haven't fallen yet. I'll be picking some of them for the fruit bowl tomorrow, and the ones that have been on the floor will be washed and processed in some way.

What can I do with them all? Jam is the obvious answer, and some will be stewed with the equally bumper crop of apples to make crumbles and pies.

What else can I do with them?

 

Get a couple of bottles of cheap vodka or brandy and some Kilner jars, pack jars with plums, add a teaspoon of sugar and top up with alcohol. Plums or prunes in eau de vie are served here as a digestif after a special meal

 

If they were mine, I'd pickle some in vinegar.Destone, halve and pickle. Lend to spicing also-pudding spice.
Spiced pickled plums | Tesco Real Food

 

Plum chutney.

 

I've just done a culinary experiment combining some of my abundance of plums with some of my abundance of courgettes.

I chopped a courgette into tiny pieces, along with a small onion, and fried them til they were just starting to brown off. Then I added a load of chopped plums, some fennel seeds, ginger, and smoked paprika. Let it stew down a bit then added some jam sugar, and boiled it vigorously for about ten minutes.

It's now in a jar in the fridge. I've probably reinvented the wheel but I've only ever made jam once when I was a kid, and never made chutney or anything like it. Oh and I didn't follow a recipe, I just made it up as I went along.

I'm going to try a dollop of it with my chop and chips for tea.

 

A little project for August perhaps?

The Art of Making the Famous Pálinka at Home

Palinka is really, really nice and mildly lethal.

 

I would but sadly I had to give up drinking spirits. Trouble is I enjoy them to much so I drink more than I should, and end up feeling like death the next day, so I gave up on them. I now limit myself to beer, cider and the occasional glass of red wine.

Oh, there's an idea. Maybe I should try to brew some plum equivalent of cider.

 

Dried prunes are the food of the Gods, and they keep really well. So expensive to buy, and home grown probably taste better.

 

Do you have an energy efficient way of dehydration?

 

I have never tried it myself, as I don't have a garden big enough for fruit trees. I just looked up how to make prunes from plums and it seems people do it in the oven, and yes it does seem to use a lot of energy, especially wasteful in summer when you don't want the house to be warm, and obviously summer is when plums will be ripe...

Commercially it sounds as though prunes are made in a special dehydrater, which might be more energy efficient than an oven?

I suppose in hot climates people might use the sun to dry prunes, and tomatoes? Maybe the sun also makes the dried fruit sweeter?

The weather forecasters are predicting a heatwave next week.

The lady on this website explains how to dry plums, using oven, dehydrator, or sun. 3 Simple Methods of Drying Plums at Home - Drying All Foods
She says the outdoor temperature needs to be at least 85 degrees, so as she is using Fahrenheit presumably she is probably American. She gives good tips on how to protect the fruit from insects.

I just looked up how to convert Fahrenheit to Centigrade, that is 29.44444 degrees Centigrade. The UK might get up to the mid 30's Centigrade next week.

 

The kids and I have just been out on a garden clean. We've collected two 5 litre pots of perfectly good plums off the floor, and probably as many again of split or slug eaten ones in the compost bin. And the tree is still full.

We've got guests coming round later for a little garden party. They'll no doubt take some of them off our hands.

Oh and yesterday's clean up yielded a load too, which I've attempted to make into jam. I've only ever made jam once before and I'm not sure it counts because I was a kid at the time under supervision. Let's hope it works out because last time I checked it hadn't set, but I've read it can take up to 48 hours.

 

Fruit leathers

 

Lavashak, How to make Persian fruit leather - Persian Food Tour

Very similar. Hubs always brought some back whenever he went home. Our friends also bring some back when then go home too.

Really, really lovely., Definitely worth making it for a healthy treat.