This week I’ve been preserving our plum harvest. While I like to pick them fresh off the tree for eating, we had to harvest them all at once because the birds were having a lovely time eating & pecking holes in them & many were dropping. Its handy having the Silkie chooks in the orchard to tidy up the falling ones before they rot. This year we had our 2010 grafts fruiting so I was able to get some colour into my perserves. The San Rosa plums are lovely but with yellow flesh they make strange looking jam. Luckily one of our grafts is dark. We were told it was Black Doris wood but is definitely not.. still a really nice eating plum whatever it is. Our search continues for some true Black Doris grafting wood if anywhere out there has some to share this winter?? Sultan & Coes Golden drop plums are nearly ripe as are the delish Greengage. Greengages are such an unattractive little green plum.. I never would have imagined the taste sensation until I tried one. Definitely my favourite.
Anyway, I have made Plum Chutney:
Plum Chutne
Plum & Orange Jam:
Fruit Before Cooking
The ENORMOUS amount of Sugar that goes into Jam
I love the hint of orange in there which softens the tart plum (which you get if you are lazy like me & leave the plum skins on). Both these recipes came from the New Zealand Gardener HomeGrown Fruit Trees special edition.
And then there’s the fab Plum Pudding I made. My picture doesn’t do it justice (coz I lept up to take a photo after I tasted it thinking I MUST share this recipe). I made the recipe from the Food In A Minute site but instead of using the black doris jam & water over the top, I boiled about 1kg of our plums until soft & added 1 cup of sugar. Mine looks a bit red because I used mostly San Rosa plums instead of the deep & dark Black Doris.
Self Saucing Plum Pud
I did an internet search looking for some nice labels for my preserves. In the end I made up my own with Word but I found some really adorable labels generous folk have provided for free & thought I’d share their links with you:
Round Labels for Jar Tops from Packagery
Adorable Hearts by Amy Moss at Eat Drink Chic (if you were planning something for Valentines day maybe)
Swing Tags from Domestifluff & Black Eiffel
[…] so delicious with my homemade Apricot Lavender & Plum Orange […]