Plums Galore!

This summer I missed a week of my CSA while I was away.  That week there were PLUMS in the fruit share.  I simply adore plums.  The following week, I expressed my excitement about the availability of plums that week, too, as I had missed the first week.  My wonderful CSA farmer exclaimed, "Oh you missed them last week?  Let me give you more!"  And thus I went home with 30 plums.

I am not kidding when I say I love plums, but a person can only eat so many plums in a week, before they start to go bad and get a little soft.  However, finding myself newly interested in making jams, I decided that plum jam could be a lovely adventure!

I pulled peels from the plums, and measured out how much fruit I had, then used a little over one part sugar to two parts fruit (it was about 60% sugar to 100% fruit).  I added some lemon juice and let it cook down.  Those plums broke down quickly into a soupy, sweet, fruity compote, but still required some intensive cooking time to take on that jammy consistency.

Sweet and richly purple, this jam was not very chunky with fruit, but was still very thick and amply fruity.  I quickly used the funnel to pour jam into the sterilized jars.  I sealed them, processed them and let them cool until they made that lovely little POP that told me they had sealed.  One jar went away as a gift, but the other is awaiting opening for some lovely hot biscuits, or perhaps with some pork tenderloin.  I can't wait!

Preserving Summer

This summer I enjoyed some of the best peaches EVER.  However, toward the end of the summer, I started to get a little sad about the fact that they would soon be no more.  I pondered how to save them in such a manner that I could enjoy them later in the year - especially when it's cold and dark and there is no fresh, local fruit available!

Some peaches simply got peeled, cut into chunks and frozen.  These will be yummy either in smoothies or just thawed and eaten as-is.  However, I still had a lot of peaches.  Having never experimented with making jams, I figured I might as well!

The experiment began with some exploration of recipes and methods.  I found the University of Georgia's National Center for Home Food Preservation to be very helpful; it had instructions on how to do the actual canning, complete with times for sterilizing jars, processing the jars and how long it should take to cook the jams, even.  For recipes, I trolled the internet and looked through a few cookbooks, too.

Ready to begin, I started by peeling and cutting up my fruit.  I dumped it, along with the sugar and lemon juice, into a dutch oven over medium heat, and stirred as it slowly degraded the fruit.  I used about two parts fruit to one part sugar, with the juice from half of a large lemon (it was a juicy lemon).  This cooked down and cooked down, filling the house with the smell of fresh peaches.

In the meantime, I had the jars boiling to sterilize them.  When the jam seemed ready, based on my using a spoon and seeing how gelatinous the mixture was, I pulled the jars out of the boiling water.  I then used a funnel to dump the jam into the jars, capped them, and quickly put them back in the boiling water to process.

After processing, I removed them and let them sit on the kitchen counter.  A bit later, I was rewarded with a reassuring POP as they sealed.  They are now in the cabinet, awaiting slightly cooler days that call for warm corn muffins, maple butter and fresh peach jam...I can't wait!