Plum Time in Orange

We are feeling rather plumtastic at the moment as our plum tree creaks with the weight of hundreds of super juicy plums. This year sees a bumper crop and you really need to eat them outside as the juice squirts everywhere as soon as you take a bite.

The huge amount of rain we received over the weekend has caused some of the fruit to start to split so it is all hands on deck to pick as many plums as possible. As usual it is a battle with the birds who are having a field day in our garden this year.

We actually don't know what to do with all the plums and I am getting pretty fed up picking up the dropped fruit off the ground and composting it all. I could barely drag the compost bin out to the road for collection yesterday, it was so full.

Dog A L'Orange has a really penchant for ripe fruit and trots around the garden eating everything both on the ground and on the tree, frequently giving himself a severe upset stomach in the process. We then have the joys of dealing with his chronic diarrhoea through the night and half eaten plums scattered all over the garden!

There are only so many plums that you can eat and I seem to lack inspiration when it comes to dealing with this overwhelming amount of ripe fruit. I've resorted to driving around Orange dropping off bags of plums to anyone and everyone I know (plus random strangers) as getting anyone to come over and pick wasn't producing results.

I've also organised for a big bag to go to Orange Food Care for their weekly programme, better they go to someone than end up going to waste.

Hope you have all have a fabulous week.

Poached Plums - Fresh From The Tree

With the multitude of plums that came off the tree and the fact they were a bit tart I decided to poach up a big batch. This was such a simple recipe, I highly recommend it to everyone to try with the fruit of your choice.

Ingredients:

Large amount of plums (kilo) washed and sliced

1 cup of water

½ cup of brown sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1 vanilla bean pod

Chop up all the plums and remove stones - this is the part that will take longest.

Add all the syrup ingredients to a pan and warm for 10 minutes until it becomes sticky.

Then add the plums (just enough to fill the liquid) and poach for another 5 – 8 minutes until the plums go a deep red colour and are nice and soft.

Remove with a slotted spoon into a big sealed jar (make sure this has been sterilised first).

Simply warm the syrup and add the next batch of plums and then repeat the cooking process, pop in the jar and repeat until you have finished all your plums.

The flavour of the poached plums really appeals to me as they are sweet but also tangy at the same time, so there isn’t that uber sweetness that you get from stewed fruit.

The vanilla and cinnamon shine through and they taste is very reminiscent of mulled wine (probably why I like it so much!).

What to do with your poached plums?

I used the poached plums to make mini plum crumbles which were utterly delicious, Mr L’Orange doesn’t do dessert so I have now eaten the 4 remaining crumbles all by myself – the highlight of my day!

I’m planning to use some of poached plums to go on top of muesli for breakfast, they would also be delicious with pancakes if you were making a batch.

Dessert wise they are great with vanilla ice cream or just served as a side dish with any other dessert you are making/serving.

I’m feeling quite proud of myself on this one, as I haven’t done much in the way of preserving and this has been one of the easiest recipes I’ve tried, plus it tastes amazing.