Plum jelly, plum cake, plum milk, plum shakes, plum plums, plum beer....

When we got back to HR, first thing I did was check out the plum tree in the back yard. Yep, fully ripe and ready to go. We spent the first part of the week picking and eating plums. They were sweet, firm, and juicy, and we just couldn't get enough.

I spent most of the week trying different recipes, mostly coming up with plum syrup, because I couldn't bring myself to use pectin or granulated sugar. Just lemons, limes or honey. Luckily, there is a seemingly endless amount of supply with which to experiment. And the upside is the money I'll save on buying maple syrup this coming winter.

Aren't they pretty? I think they're italian. 

I have stocked up on every type of jar. Ball, mason, weck, you name it. One lid, two lid, glass, it's all a matter of practice. The ball jars are the easiest, but when you're trying to can something fresh and pure, do you really need to add a plastic lined lid? Blech!

The cleaner I tried to go (i.e. all glass), the harder the processing became. But I think I'm getting the hang of the weck jars. 50% failure in the beginning, but now only 1 jar per batch fails.

Mom was a great help. She is an amazing cook and offered to help, but just like my kids, I wanted to do it myself. So she and the kids came up with a list of all the things we could do with plums.

My favorites are plum coffee, plum grits, and plum beer.

I also froze quite a bit. First go-round, I threw wet, freshly cut plum pieces in jars to freeze. Second go-round, I realized that cutting and freezing on sheets on parchment paper and placing the frozen pieces in the glass jars is the way to go.

Only freeze wide mouth jars, and always leave headspace, lest you want a freezer full of broken glass!

Love you, Abu and Opa!