Food Storage Friday: Plum Sauce

 Several weeks ago we found ourselves with a surplus of plums from our Bountiful Basket. I remember when I was growing up my mom and grandmothers canned plums and I thought that they were gross. But I decided that there had to be something delicious that I could do with these. The answer: Asian Plum Sauce.  Now this recipe itself calls for both fresh and food storage ingredients, but the real beauty of it is that once prepared it makes preparing quick and healthy meals  with food storage a snap. It goes well over stir-fried vegetables and rice.

Asian Plum Sauce
Food Storage Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch + 1 Tablespoon water


Fresh Ingredients:
3 lbs plums, pitted and chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 oz ginger
1 small onion, minced
2 cups water
1/4 cup lemon juice

1. Puree fresh ingredients. 2. Combine all ingredients except cornstarch and Tablespoon of water. 3. Bring to a boil and simmer 30 minutes. 4. Mix water and cornstarch, add to sauce and simmer until thickened. 5 Can in a water bath according to canner directions. (The recipe I found said 10 minutes, I felt more comfortable with 20.) Makes 4 pint jars

I served this over brown rice I had prepared in my crockpot and four cups of chopped and stir-fried mixed veggies. My husband added some stir-fried tofu to his, but you could just as easily stir-fry some chicken or pork and add that.

Homemade Salsa Revisited

 You may have noticed that my posts have been a little more sporadic lately. I'm still here, still buying and using food storage, still trying to do my small part to make the world a better place. Having a third child has sucked away all of my free time, even if she is my easiest baby yet. And in addition to sucking away my time and energy, she has also sucked away all of my pregnancy weight, so it's not all bad. So believe me I still have plenty more to say, I just don't have as much time to do it.
 Along with everything else that has been happening I found myself in possession of two boxes of beautiful tomatoes from my parents' garden (they tried to give me more than that.) After giving a bunch to the neighbors I decided that newborn or no, I really had to make salsa. I just did it crockpot style. That way I spent about 45 minutes chopping & rinsing ingredients, let it simmer for 6 hours and processed it for 20 minutes at the end. Totally doable.

Aren't they beautiful?

There is something so satisfying about home canning. It makes my house smell good and it means that I'll have yumminess in my pantry for quite awhile. 3 dozen tomatoes made 12 pints canned, plus 3 more pints that are in the fridge. (And I still have plenty of tomatoes.) For the recipe I used go here. Although instead of jalapenos I used the red Anaheims from my garden, and instead of the green Anaheims I used some green Hatch chiles from my thirty pound monster bag of a couple weeks ago. This made for spicier salsa than usual. That's ok, I like spicy food. Unfortunately we have discovered that baby really doesn't like it when I eat anything remotely spicy, and lets me know by giving back any tainted meals that she is given. Speaking of which I have laundry to do. ttfn

What I did with a case of peaches

Recently I got a good deal on a case of peaches from Bountiful Baskets. They were the Rich Lady variety and peeled very easily which was nice. Here's what I did with them:

1. Ate lots and lots of them fresh (as did the rest of my family) :D
2. Blended them into smoothies
3. Made Peach Melba Waffle syrup. I got it into my head that this would taste good and looked everywhere for a recipe, unsuccessfully. So I made one up.

Peach Melba Waffle Syrup
10 cups pureed peaches (peeled and de-stoned)
1 cup fresh raspberries
4 cups sugar
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons vanilla
1. Combine the first four ingredients and bring to a boil. 2. Simmer for 5 minutes. 3. Add vanilla. 4. Seal in a hot water bath for 20 minutes (Increase time as needed if you live at an elevation above 1000 feet.) Makes approximately 3 quarts.

It didn't turn out the color that I was hoping and imagining. but it tastes good on waffles. And I'm sure that it's great on ice cream, angel food cake, etc.

4. Made Peach Salsa. I cut the sugar back by 1 1/4 cups and I still felt that it was too sweet. I also added a few more peppers, more cilantro and cut back the cumin. (I don't really like cumin.) I think I will make this one again someday but cut back the sugar even more. My family came to visit this weekend and they inhaled the stuff. I liked it on Cafe Rio Rice and I think it would also be good on grilled fish or chicken, or maybe grilled fish or chicken tacos. My batch made 5 pints, plus some extra that I put into some tupperware.

5. Made Peach Pie This pie was good, but not magical. I put the peaches in the mix instead of on top, and used a graham cracker crust. It was simple enough that Thing 1 was able to help make it which is always fun.