Plumageddon!

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
-Mae West 

 Plumageddon has come! I have a medium sized italian plum tree that was FULL of fruit.  When all was said and done, I harvested 62 lbs of plums off of it.  Unfortunately, these are not freestone, and I don't have a pitter (I will be getting one before next season), so dear readers, I processed them all by hand.  My hands and fingernails were stained for days, but it was worth it. They turn into delicious things.

About a third of said plums

Processing by hand sucks

The first thing I made was Plum BBQ Sauce. It was a perfect combination of flavors, hitting your taste buds in waves. Beginning with sweetness, then moving right on into just the right amount of tartness. As soon as the tartness starts to fade, you feel the heat rise, and ride out the spice until you take another bite and start again. After using quite a bit of it, I canned the remainder, 4 pints.

Next began the string of jams and a butter. We had been hitting up our local blueberry U-Pick pretty hard, and had quite a stock of those suckers, so, you will see them in a lot of these recipes. Plus, its just an all around awesome flavor combination, and makes a beautiful jam.

Can you smell it?

This came to pass in Plum Blueberry Jam, Plum Blueberry Butter, and Plum Blueberry Vanilla Jam. To be clear, these plums can easily stand alone, like in this Plum Ginger Vanilla Jam.  Or, they can be paired with other fruit like this Plum Apple Ginger Jam. Sometimes you get volunteer plums from your neighbors tree that overhang your yard, and get to try Victoria Plum Vanilla Jam.

A few jars 

After all of that, I still have about three 1 gallon ziplocks full of processed plums in my freezer.  Next round, baked goods, and possibly an attempt at plum wine.

Food totals: 213.5 lbs since last post

10 lbs cherries

5 lbs beans

1 lb 2 oz strawberries

9.5 lbs  carrots

17 lbs onions

1.5 lbs rainbow chard

5 lbs lemon cucumber

62 lbs plums

.5 lbs Blackberries

12 lbs Victoria plums

145 lbs apples

.25 lbs Corni De Toro peppers

.5 lbs Poblano peppers

4 lbs tomatillos

2 lbs ground cherries

 

224.75 lbs to goal