Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Plums

We were blessed to pick (for free!) approximately 77 pounds of freestone plums last week. Man oh man have I been busy with plums. Plums in cinnamon vanilla syrup (divine), plums in ginger lime honey syrup (okay), spiced plum butter, Asian plum sauce, plum pancake syrup, and plum-jalapeno jelly. Take a look at the canning tally in my sidebar!



My hands are stained purple and the floor and cupboards got covered in sticky purple juice as fast as I could clean it up. See the drips of juice across the floor?



I'm especially proud of the jelly since it's my second time making jelly and first time using pectin. My coworker has been toying with the idea of starting his own jalapeno jelly business called Sweet Mama's Fire Jelly. I labeled one jar especially for him.


I hit up a garage sale and scored 52 pints or half pints plus one box of lids for $10.00. Without those, I could never have completed all of this canning. I also did my first (and hopefully only) all night canning session. After a couple of days rest and a trip to the store to buy more pectin and lids, I finished the plums tonight. We have samples of each item in the fridge, either some that didn't fit in a jar or jars that didn't seal, which I have not included in my total count.

The canning isn't finished though. Next up, apples in some form and zucchini pickles.




5 comments:

Amy said...

Wow! Your canning tally is huge. Where do you put all this food? And do you eat it all throughout the year? I run out of space to store the canning I do and I don't do nearly as much as you do.

Great job on the garage sale jars and lids. That's a great deal.

Amelia said...

Wow, I was wondering what you did with all of those plums, I never even knew you COULD can them! I'm so impressed with the variety of things you do with each fruit, it makes my food storage look really boring. :)

Unknown said...

I just saw how much apricot puree you have, holy cow!! You are way amazing. Thanks for linking up!

Cherish said...

Amelia/Jaime - Thanks!

Amy - I refuse to open jars for about two months because I put so much work into them, but then we eat them throughout the year. Some things we finish by next summer and some last for a few years. I never know what type of fruit I'll get next year though, so I try to put up as much as possible when it comes.

I stack boxes of jars on top of buckets, and I've also started stacking boxes of jars on top of wood in our storage/laundry room. That way the jars aren't directly on cement.

colorchic said...

I still have 1/2 box of plums left after making several jars of jam, and plum chutney! I think I'll have to put some into jars with ginger lime syrup... sounds good!