Perma-Flo Experiment #3: Peach Plum Raspberry Pie Filling

The pie filling experiments with Perma Flo continue.    Both because I'm curious about this stuff and more than a little OCD. 

That's CDO for you guys who like to see things alphabetized.

Experiment 1 is here.  Good, but gloopy.
Experiment 2 is here.  Runny.

In this batch of pie filling I decided to see what would happen if I macerated the fruit with sugar overnight to bring out the juices so I wouldn't have to add any extra water.

We dumped enough fruit [4 cups per pie] for 3 pies in a big bowl with 3/4 cup sugar per pie [2 1/4 cups total] and let it sit overnight.  The next day the juices were flowing and I put the fruit-sugar mix in the pot and heated it to boiling.   Then I added 1/4 cup Perma Flo per pie [3/4 cup total] and stirred like crazy.   As soon as it got thick I turned off the heat.   It made beautiful pie filling at just the right consistency. 

One problem:   As soon as you add the dry Perma Flo, it clumps.   That makes it hard to stir in completely and in the finished pie, you get the occasional gloopy gluey lump.   It's not a deal breaker, but surely there's a better way.

Stay tuned for Experiment #4.  

Plum Bounty

Our lovely neighbors' plum tree was plum full of plums this year and they shared the bounty with us.   He estimated that the tree had about 150 lbs of fruit on it total - the limbs were bent to the ground - loaded with fruit.

They are small, red plums - sweet flesh and tart skins.   Delicious!!

We did what our neighbors did - washed and cut them in half, removed the seed and then packed them in ziplock bags to freeze.   We did 2 cup quantities so they'd be easy to use for smoothies, pies, crisps and jam later.

Here's a tip for quick processing.   Use a grapefruit spoon to quickly get the seed out of the fruit.   We set up a short assembly line with one person cutting the plums in half and putting the half with the seed in another bowl.   The second [and third] person took the seeds out with a grapefruit spoon.   The work moves fast and we did two or three gallons at a time in short order. 

Here's a good recipe for Plum Jam.  Oh, and then there's plum sauce.    I also love plums mixed with pears in jam.   And crisps.

Mmmmm.

Autumn Olive Plum Chutney

A lot of you have never heard of autumn olive - also called Elaeagnus Umbellata - so check out my posts here  and here for the details.

We have a bunch of these - the thornless kind - and it's harvest time!   In no time flat we had a full gallon of berries.   These babies have a big seed in them so the first thing you do is cook them down and take the seeds out.   The first link above shows you how.

You'll get half as much sauce as berries.   We had 2 quarts of sauce when I was done, which was plenty for a batch of jam and some left over to experiment with.    I thought it would make a nice chutney paired with a few plums and this is what I did. 

Note: I was surprised to discover that this sauce tastes a lot like tomatoes, especially before you add the cloves. As in – everyone who tasted it said – “Did you put tomatoes in this? Are you sure?” If you want to see, then leave the cloves out until the very end of the cooking time. Autumn Olive and tomatoes are very high in lycopene, which contributes to their red color. It’s possible that has something to do with the taste thing.

This is a terrific barbeque sauce for your favorite grilled meat.    Terrific!   Mmmm.







Autumn Olive Plum Chutney

• 2 cups autumn olive sauce [from 4 cups berries]
• 2 cups chopped plums
• 1 tablespoon mustard seed
• 1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 1/2 cups sugar 
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/2 rounded teaspoon ground cloves

Combine ingredients and cook slowly over medium heat. This will get very, very thick, so feel free to add water [or juice] to bring it to the consistency that you want. With no added water, this makes 2 pints. When this stuff cools, it is molto thicko. [I just made that up.]  It takes at least a pint of liquid to bring it to a thick barbeque sauce consistency.

All of which means that you can put it up in smaller bottles, then when you need it, add half as much water for an easily spreadable sauce, and equal parts water for a pourable sauce.  

Pear Plum Crisp

First of all, let me be clear.   I believe in dessert for breakfast.   Especially fruit stuff.  Fruit desserts are much easier to rationalize for breakfast than, say, chocolate cake.

So we have a lot of pies and crisps for breakfast. 

Crisps are easy because all you have to do is cut up the fruit, sprinkle on some sugar if you need it and toss on a topping.   Easy squeezy.

We had a few plums in the fridge that needed to be eaten, but there were only five of them.   I cut them up anyway but I needed something else to add to it.  A can of pears!

And we have a jar of tapioca granules that I picked up at Freedom Country Store, just north of Worthington.  Tapioca granules make good thickener.

This is what I did:

Pear-Plum Crisp

• 1 can pears [29 oz.] in heavy syrup
• 5 plums, cut up and seeded
• 2 Tablespoons tapioca granules [or flakes]

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease the bottom of an 8x8 pan or casserole dish.   Put plums in the bottom of the dish.    Open the can of pears and put a few of the pears on the plums, leaving the syrup.   Stir the tapioca granules into the syrup and pour over the fruit.    Sprinkle on the crisp topping.  Bake for 50 minutes or until bubbling and browned.   Serves 9.

Crisp Topping

• 1/4 C sugar
• 1/2 C flour
• 1/2 C oats
• 1/4 C butter
• dash cinnamon
• dash salt

Mix everything together with a pastry blender or food processor.  I always use the pastry blender.  Eric always uses the food processor.   I told him it's a guy/power tool thing.  He told me it's a 20th century kind of thing and since we're now in the 21st century, I'd better catch up.

Whatever.

If you use the pastry blender, leave the oats out until everything else is chopped up nicely.   Then stir in the oats.   Eric says if you just use the food processor, you don't have to remember to leave the oats out.  You can just toss it all in.

He's got a point. 


Note:  Even with the 2 Tablespoons of tapioca, it could still have been a bit thicker.   If you want thick, then bump up the tapioca to 3 Tablespoons instead of two.

Pear-Plum Vanilla Jam

This is heaven in a bottle.  

Seriously. 

So, I'll cut right to the chase.  I can tell you don't want me to prologue this with a funny story or witty repartee.   Ahem.

Pear-Plum Vanilla Jam

• 3 cups cooked pears [3-4 fresh pears]
• 2 cups cooked plums [2-3 large plums or 3-4 small plums]
• 2 1/2 Tablespoons Ball Low-Sugar Pectin powder
• 1 vanilla bean
• 4 cups sugar
• 2+ Tablespoons blackberry syrup [or other berry juice/syrup to make it a pretty color]

If you have fresh pears and plums,  peel, de-seed and chop them up.   Put them in a big pot with just enough water that they won't burn if you don't stir them every second.   Cook them until soft.

Once the fruit is cooked,  sprinkle in the pectin.   Pectin will clump when it hits hot liquid, so if you've just cooked the fruit and it's hot, then stir constantly as you put in the pectin.    Trust me.

Boil the fruit and pectin.

While you're waiting for that stuff to boil,  slice your vanilla bean in half longways.   With a spoon, open up one end of one of the halves and scrape the seeds down the pod and out into the fruit and pectin.   Do that with the other half, too, while you're at it. 

Let the fruit and vanilla come to a hard boil.   A really hard boil.   Hard boil for 1 minute.

Add the sugar and berry syrup and return it to a hard boil.  Be patient.   Meditate while you wait.  Ponder the splatters on the wall behind your stove where you can't reach them.   Practice letting go of the OCD that has just seized you.   Really.   This jam will taste just fine even if that wall has spatters on it.

Hard boil that jam for 1 minute.    Ladle into jars and process for canning.  

Then find a step stool that'll let you reach those splatters behind the stove.   

Plum Sauce

We eat a lot of plum sauce, or any variation thereof, whenever we make eggrolls.

But it gets expensive to buy those cute little bottles - even if the bottles are really cute and I can use them again for other stuff. 

So I decided to make my own.  [My own plum sauce.  Not my own bottles.]  It's easier than I thought to make it myself.

Really.

First I bought some plums at Sam's and then they got lost in the fridge.

I hate that.

When I found them, some of them had soft spots.   The kind of soft spots that aren't really fun to eat fresh, but that are just perfect in jam and plum sauce.

I peeled and chopped and cooked up the plums and made Pear-Plum Vanilla Jam with half of them and used the rest for plum sauce.   [More on that Pear-Plum Vanilla Jam later...]

I had about 3 cups of cooked plums left over for the plum sauce. 

Here's how it went...

Plum Sauce

• 3 cups cooked plums [That's about 3 large plums or 4-5 small ones]
• 1  1/2 Tablespoons Ball Low-Sugar Pectin powder

In saucepan, combine the plum goo and pectin and heat until it boils hard.   Be patient.  It's worth it.  Boil hard for 1 minute.  

• 1/4 cup minced onion
• 1 Tablespoon minced fresh ginger or pickled ginger
• 4 medium cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil

In another pot, combine the above ingredients and cook just until tender.   You're trying to mellow them, not caramelize them.

When the plums have boiled hard for a minute, put them in the large pot with the onions and stuff.  Return to boil.   Then add: 

• 3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup blackberry syrup [or other red juice for color because my plums were beige]
• 1 Tablespoon red pepper flakes

Heat this until it boils hard.   Be patient.  Let it get good and hot all the way through.   Keep stirring and stirring and when it's boiling so hard that you can't stir it down and it's singing to you, then add:

• 1/2 cup vinegar

Combine well.   Let it all get good and hot again.    Ladle into jars.   Process for canning.   Makes 5 cups of truly excellent plum sauce.


Troubleshooting:
Cooking the plums:   Peel and chop them up into chunks.   Don't stress out about the size of the chunks.   They fall apart when they cook.   Put them into a small saucepan and put about 1/2 cup of water in there.   You don't want too much water, but you don't want them to stick either and you won't have time to stir them constantly because now you're going to go mince the onion and garlic and stuff.   Add more water if you need to.   It'll be fine. 

Plums:  Let's say that you can't find any fresh plums worth eating at the store right now.   Don't worry.  You can use a large can of plums from the store.  Get one without sugar if possible.

Plums in syrup:  Let's say that you can't find a can of plums without sugar.   Don't worry.   This is what you do:

• Instead of dissolving your pectin in with the plums, dissolve the pectin into 1 1/2 cups of plain old water.   Or plain new water.   Water.   Whatever. 
• Boil the water and pectin hard.
• When it has boiled hard for a minute, put the can of plums in there too and return it all to a boil.  Then put it in the bigger pan with the onions and stuff and boil it again.  [You don't have to boil it hard this time.]
• Add the rest of the sugar MINUS a cup.   [You already have sugar in the can of plums, so you can cut some of the extra sugar we add to the sauce out.  Make sense?]  
• Follow the rest of the recipe as it is above.    

Your sauce should be just fabulous.   Have an extra eggroll for me!

Plums and Star Anise

So I was totally inspired by  Food In Jars'  post on making plum preserves with star anise.

Be still my heart. These were amazing.

Totally, totally wonderful.

Fabulous, even.

Make sure you use a couple of pink plums so you can get that great color.   It tastes better when it's that color. 

Go there.  Make some.  You won't be sorry.