Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy

Yesterday my next-door neighbor brought over a huge grocery bag full of red plums from his backyard tree. The plums were great fresh, but there were so many that they'd go bad before we could eat them all, so I decided to make jam. I checked out recipezaar.com and found a recipe that I liked, but adapted it to what I had on hand and made it my own.

Plum-Lime Jam

Ingredients:
8 cups (about 64 ounces) of of plums - rinsed, pitted and coarsely chopped with skins on
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla
The juice of one lime
Three 2 inch strips of lime zest
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For easier measuring, I just filled up a 64 ounce Gladware container with the chopped plums.

Place all the ingredients in a large pot with plenty of room to allow for the mixture to boil. Cook over low to medium low heat. Make sure all the sugar is dissolved, and continue to keep scraping the sides as you stir.

Last to go in -- the strips of lime zest

Once the mixture appears to me more liquefied, take out the lime zest and mash the mixture. The original recipe says to use a potato masher and that the mixture should be chunky. If you like a little more chunky, well then go for the potato masher, however, I love to use my kitchen gadgets, so I opted for the hand held mixer...

...and ended up with a smooth mixture. Keep in mind that the pot is still on the stove on low to medium low heat.


The original recipe explains that the mixture should be the consistency/thickness of honey when cooled. It's not the same texture as honey, but it should be somewhat thick, well, like jam (duh!) To test it, I would spoon out about a tablespoon into a small bowl, cool.

My jam is tangy, and that's what I was going for, but you can adjust the tangy-ness by reducing the lime juice to taste. This recipe yielded just a little over a 2 pound jar of jam. Store in an air-tight container. Will keep in a refrigerator for about a month.




Yesterday's song:
Fast Cars And Freedom - Rascal Flats - Katiefeldmom

PEACE