Im not sure if I made plum sauce, per the recipe I sort of followed, or plum ketchup. Either way, it is tasty and pretty darn near free!
Foraging friend, Jackie, kindly picked a gallon of wild plums for me and thus I ended up with about 5 pounds of delicious fruit. Well, wild plums are kind of tart/sour, but not so bad when fully ripe as they are now.
The plum cake I made a while ago was good, but I wanted something that would last longer. A search on the Internet led me to the FatFree Vegan Kitchen, where I found an enticing Wild Plum Sauce recipe.
Although the recipe says to plop the plums whole into a pan, cover with water, and simmer until the skins pop, then press through a colander, I opted to spend about 10 minutes jabbing the soft fruit with the tip of a knife and slipping out the seed. A large portion of the wild plum is its seed. As you can see in the photo, these plums are small and therefore somtimes called cherry plums.
I cooked the plums for about 15 minutes while I chopped garlic (from my own garden) and ginger root.
I put the plums into my mighty Vitamix and created a wholesome pulp. This went back into the pan, with the garlic and ginger root that I had sauteed per the recipe, stirred in the called-for cayenne, soy sauce, and onion powder, and let simmer for 15 minutes to thicken.
It really thickened! All that skin, I suppose. My advice about this recipe: if you keep the skins on, be prepared to add sugar and salt. I stirred in a fistful or so of brown sugar, which made it "sweet and sour" instead of just "sour."
I doubled the recipe and got about 3 cups of . . . plum stuff.
Im eating it right away (I do love it on my all-time favorite food, roasted potatoes), but also freezing some. Im not sure if freezing will really work, so I have my fingers crossed. If it does, Im set for winter!
Now I still have 3 pounds of plums left. Perhaps I will make freezer jam tomorrow.
I would have voted anyway, but getting a maple bar as well was pretty sweet.
