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FROM FAMINE TO FEAST

Our plum tree has produced a wonderful crop this year and we have to pick as many of these little juicy jewels as possible before this weekend or lose  most of them.  This is the second year of a bumper crop, and has proven a salve to my soul after the sweetcorn disaster.

We bought our Italian plum tree (Prunus domestica) from Aldi about six years ago and it produced absolutely nothing .

Two years ago, we sat at the top of the garden discussing it's fate, Although a very pretty tree, we bought it for fruit and it wasn't cutting the mustard.  I said it should have one more year and then, if no fruit, out it comes.  Well, I do believe plum trees have ears, somewhere hidden about them because the following year it produced a mountain of plums. I'm not a huge fan of plums as I find the skins too sour, but these were divine. Dark in colour with flesh that is a shade between green and amber. The pics below don't really do the colour justice.

I froze them, made plum chutney, Mr. put them in his Rumtopf* , we donated plums and we ate them daily.

Today I washed, halved and de-stoned them and open froze them on trays.



Once frozen, I bagged them up and popped them into the freezer.


I made a plum and apple mix for the freezer which can be used for crumbles, pies or eaten with ice-cream or porridge.


I just used equal quantities of plums and apples, the plums were halved and the apples peeled and sliced. I put them in a pan over a gentle heat, added some soft brown sugar, a generous sprinkle of ground cinnamon, the juice of half a lemon and a good glug of ginger wine. I cooked it for about 7/8 minutes. The kitchen smelt sublime.

I then remembered the five pears that I'd put in the fridge (I find pears don't keep well in a fruit bowl) and made another batch. I had some Rubicon Mango juice and splashed in 100ml to help the fruit soften down.
.




Lots of delicious goodness for the winter months.

* A rumtopf is a glazed lidded pot that you pop your summer fruits in as they ripen, topping up with rum (we used Bacardi) making sure the fruit is always covered by alcohol. At Christmas, you drain the boozy fruit and eat with ice-cream and bottle the liquor for drinking. 



Sorry the pics are so bad but my phone camera is playing up and I  had to use the tablet.



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