Scroll mod way down the linked thread for a very good plum sauce recipe.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hit Recipes

there's a plum barbecue sauce that's lovely. Also how about plum pie filling? Use the fruit filling recipe from the Ball book and substitute plums. I did this one year, and it's a bit unique, but makes a fine pie! Plum filing would be nice in a breakfast/tea ring, if you like to work with yeast. How bout pancake syrup? Many have posted fine recipes for fruit syrup -- just use the rendered juice in place of whatever else. The acidity/ph should be comparable and safe.

Dried plums? Part of a lovely trail mix or an addition to granola at some point? Ball book has a recipe for apple brandied mincemeat that I've tried and liked. I saw a jar recently for plum mincemeat -- have no idea of that recipe but I think your extension educator could help you adapt it if you would use that sort ofthing.

Asian plum sauce is good on egg rolls or chicken strips.
I am not sure if this is exactly the recipe I used or not, but sounds good. Here is also an apple plum butter recipe.
Apple-Plum Butter

2 lb slightly under-ripe red plums quartered
2 lb tart apples quartered
2 cup unsweetened apple juice
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Method :
Combine plums, apples and juice in a heavy non-aluminum saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat, cover partially and simmer 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover and cook until fruit is very tender, stirring occasionally (20 to 30 minutes).
Cool slightly. Force fruit through food mill fitted with medium blade, discarding peel and seeds. (Or you can seed and pit the fruit BEFORE cooking. Then, when you reach this stage, all you have to do is run it through a food processor.)
Return puree to pan, add sugar and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. (Careful, mixture can scorch easily!) Reduce heat and simmer briskly until butter is thick and glossy, stirring frequently (about 40 minutes). Remove from heat, spoon into hot sterilized jars and seal.
Butter can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 weeks, or processed in a boiling water bath (15 minutes for pint jars or 10 minutes for 8 ounces jars) and kept on a cool dark shelf for up to 1 year.
This recipe yields 3 pint or 6 half-pint jars.
Yield: 3 pints

Here is a link that might be useful: Asian plum sauce recipe.

I just made plum fruit leather that is good.
I use this syrup recipe all the time with great results.
Syrups made from blackberries, huckleberries, raspberries, boysenberries, loganberries, sour cherries, and Island Belle grapes as well as mixtures of berries are of good flavor, color, and consistency (thin like maple syrup, medium thick like corn syrup, or slightly jelled). Syrups can be made with or without pectin and lemon juice. Lemon juice may improve color. Use of pectin will vary consistency.

To Prepare Fruit Puree:
Sort, stem, and wash ripe fruit or thaw frozen unsweetened fruit; crush fruit thoroughly; measure crushed fruit. Add 1 cup boiling water to each 4 cups crushed fruit and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer to soften--about 5 for soft fruits...about 10 minutes for firm fruits like cherries and grapes. Press through sieve.

SYRUPS MADE WITH PUREE
4 cups puree
4 cups sugar
1/2 package or less powdered pectin (if desired)
3 or 4 Tbsp lemon juice (if desired)

1. Mix puree, sugar, pectin and lemon juice.
2. Bring to boil and stir for 2 minutes (boil till jelly thermometer reaches 218F).
3. Remove from heat, skim off foam, and pour into 1/2 pint or 1 pint jars to within 1/2 inch of top.
4. Adjust lids and process in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
5. Remove from canner and cool.
6. Check lids, label, and store in cool, dry place.

To Prepare Fruit Juice:
Sort, stem and wash ripe fruit or thaw frozen, unsweetened fruit; crush fruit thoroughly. Place crushed fruit in dampened jelly bag and drain. For clearest juice, do not press bag to extract juice. For firm fruits, heat is needed to start flow of juice. Add about 1/2 cup water to each 3 cups crushed fruit. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Place hot fruit in dampened jelly bag; drain.

SYRUPS MADE WITH JUICE
4 cups juice
4 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice (if desired)
1/2 package or less powdered pectin (if desired)

1. Mix juice, sugar, lemon juice and pectin.
2. Bring to boil and boil 2 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, skim off foam, and pour into 1/2 pint or 1 pint canning jars to within 1/2 inch of top.
4. Adjust lids and process in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
5. Remove from canner and let cool.
6. Check lids, labels, and store in cool, dry place.

How about plums canned in medium syrup? My favourite when made with the right plums. Try a small batch to see if you like the results from your variety of plum. I had one batch that I didn't like (fortunately it was small). Standard USDA recipe works for me. Can post it later if you like.

You took the words out of my mouth, victrola. My mother used to put up many quarts of plums each year. We ate them for desert. They were good. I still remember the flavor, a nice change from other fruits. They would also be useful as an ingredient in other plum preparations. This would be the easiest way to take care of a lot of plums in a hurry.

Jim

You took the words out of my mouth, victrola. My mother used to put up many quarts of plums each year. We ate them for desert. They were good. I still remember the flavor, a nice change from other fruits. They would also be useful as an ingredient in other plum preparations. This would be the easiest way to take care of a lot of plums in a hurry.

Jim

That plum orange jam in the Ball Blue Book is excellent. Its in the "Something Extra" section.

For sure, canned plums are so yummy on a cold winter day. I froze some sliced plums last year and used them to make plum crisp - mixed in a few blueberries or sliced apples, so delic:))

For the first-time last year I made plum pies from Italian Prune Plums and froze them. It's a single-crust recipe with a streusel topping.

I never imagined a plum pie could taste so good. It should work equally well with bags of frozen plums.

I second what the others said about canning plums. I used to can them raw pack but last year did a hot pack instead. More troublesome but much better flavor. I also made a spiced plum jam that turned out well.

Canned plums can always be puréed and used in lieu of applesauce in spice cakes.

Carol

Hot pack for plums worked better for me, too. I didn't notice a quality or flavour issue with raw-pack, but the raw-pack plums leaked a lot in processing, and the jars had more syrup to fruit than hot-pack. I made raw-pack once but will stick to hot-pack.

PLUMS--HALVED OR WHOLE

QUANTITY: An average of 14 pounds is needed per canner
load of 7 quarts; an average of 9 pounds is needed per
canner load of 9 pints. A bushel weighs 56 pounds and
yields 22 to 36 quarts -- an average of 2 pounds per
quart.

QUALITY: Select deep-colored, mature fruit of ideal
quality for eating fresh or cooking. Plums may be packed
in water or syrup.

PROCEDURE: Stem and wash plums. To can whole, prick
skins on two sides of plums with fork to prevent
splitting. Freestone varieties may be halved and pitted.
If you use syrup, prepare very light, light, or medium
syrup according to directions. (see syrup)

Hot pack -- Add plums to water or hot syrup and boil 2
minutes. Cover saucepan and let stand 20 to 30 minutes.
Fill jars with hot plums and cooking liquid or syrup,
leaving 1/2-inch headspace.

Raw pack -- Fill jars with raw plums, packing firmly.
Add hot water or syrup, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.

Adjust lids and process.

Recommended process time for PLUMS, HALVED OR WHOLE
in a boiling-water canner
pints 20 min. quarts 25 min.

If you have access to lots and lots of plums, plum jelly is wonderful. I generally mix up plums from our various varieties, I have Blue Damson, green gage, and some red ones with yellow flesh. I rinse, fill a 3 gal stock pot and put on low, and mush it up after a while. As I'm not after ribbons at the fair, I just strain the mash through a sieve, although we used to use flour sacks.

The juice can then be made into jelly either the traditional way, but these days we find a much easier and better result using the Pomona pectin. Yesterday we did a batch of 11 pint jars using 1 entire package of Pomona; there were 3 cups of sugar in the entire batch, just enough to take the bitter edge off the plums. Its wonderful stuff.

Plum juice can be made into jelly either the traditional way: i.e., without added pectin.

Oh, you might want to make plum butter, too!

When I was a kid we lived on a farm, and any surplus fruit that couldn't be frozen or canned ended up as wine. My father made many types using grapes (of course), peaches, plums, chokecherries, or, for that matter, any kind of fruit that would ferment. We ended up with many interesting, delicious wines.

Don't forget drying also. Plums dry beautifully and make excellent snacks as well as ingredients in cakes and quick breads.

Carol

I bought a peck of plums and made 15 half pints of plum sauce for my daughter to dip her chicken nuggets in, one batch of "plain" plum jam for Dad and one batch of Plum Conserve with Walnuts and Cointreau. It's much like the Plum Orange jam in the BBB, but with an added cup of chopped walnuts.

Annie

If you have a local farmers market you and your neighbor can take them down there and sell them.

Or alternately you can box them up and mail them to me hee hee

Best Wishes
Amino-X

I had a plum tart from a local bakery here last week. It had a sweet crust. It was a nice contrast to the tart plums and was quite yummy.

Reading Lady, when you made the spiced plum jam, what spices did you use? I have quite a few plums on my tree (this is the first year I've gotten fruit from the plum tree), they are pretty small and very mild tasting.

I wasn't going to do anything with them but if I make a jam and add spice that might give them a flavor worth canning.

lexi, the Spiced Plum Jam was a plum butter gone awry. (But as we canners know, there are no mistakes, only unforseen transformations). When I saw that it was jelling I just labeled it "jam" instead.

I used whole spices. I don't like ground spices in preserves because they alter the color and also with sitting may become unpleasantly strong. For 6 pounds of Italian prunes I used 4 3-inch sticks of cinnamon, just a tiny bit of blade mace and 8 cloves. I placed the spices in a bag and removed them before the jam was finished. I didn't want the spices to be too strong, especially the cloves, which are kind of the bullies of the spice world. A bit of nutmeg could substitute for the blade mace or an allspice berry or two would be nice. Alternatively, just cinnamon and cloves would be fine.

My notes to myself after finishing were to reduce the size of the batch and not try more than about 3-4 pounds. Also, I made the jam in the oven. (Well, I thought I was making butter!) But I have made strawberry jam in the oven. It's an easy and less stressful way to do it, especially if I'm canning other things as well. A good way to multi-task and keeps the burners free.

Carol

Carol, thank you for the reply. I know what you mean about mistakes not being mistakes :)
The best thing about making jam or jelly is that if it doesn't take, it makes a darn good syrup!

The spiced plum butter sounds good too, maybe I'll make that instead. Oh decisions, decisions lol!

Plum wine! Japanese plum wine was a favorite among friends in college, so when the ancient Santa Rosa plum tree in my new home over fruited, making plum wine seemed the natural thing to do. There are some great local wine making stores here in SoCal, and now resources on the Internet. My homemade wine never tasted like the stuff in bottles, but was still good; appreciated too much at parties; and not appreciated the morning after. The poor tree declined and died, so no more plum wine for a while.

I can plums with a hot hot pack method, using 100 percent apple or grape juice in place of a sugar syrup. Lower sugar that way, for diabetics.