Plum Galette

Sunny Summertime Fare

Recipe by Robin

As readers know, I’m not a piecrust expert, but summertime fruit is an excellent motivator for experimenting with pie-making. Galettes, also known as one-roll pies, have crust edges turned up to cradle fresh fruit and are made on baking sheets. Their informal appearance is perfect on for summer. Treat yourself to a galette after a hot day by preparing and chilling the piecrust during the day. In the evening when it’s cooler, roll out the crust, fill the pie, and bake for just 20 – 30 minutes. Cool slightly, slide onto a serving platter, and enjoy!

Honey Ginger Plum Sauce

Sweet Plum Sauce Before Cooking

Recipe by Robin

Inspired by my successful Spicy Plum Sauce, I wanted to try making a sweeter, milder plum sauce. Like the spicy sauce, this sauce contains garlic, ginger, and Chinese Five Spice. Adding honey and sugar and leaving out the crushed chilies makes the difference. Note that ginger still adds a noticeable kick, and you can adjust the amount to anywhere between strictly sweet to downright zingy. Since commercial plum sauce is made with salted plums, you can stock a trio of salty-spicy-sweet plum sauces in the pantry to prepare for any culinary occasion or mood.

Low Sugar Mirabelle Plum Jam

After a Jam Session

Recipe by Robin

Yellow plums and apricots seem similar, but they’re nothing alike to the food preservationist. True, they both belong to the Prunus genus and can be hybridized into such oddities as apriplums, plumcots, pluots, and apriums. But plums have more sour flavor components, thicker skin, and lots more water than apricots. Many plums also have less pectin than apricots. So tweaking my apricot jam recipe to preserve our Mirabelle plum tree’s bountiful harvest has been challenging. At last, after 3 years of experimentation including large batches that did not gel, batches that gelled too much, and over-sweetened batches, here is the perfected low sugar plum jam recipe.

Spicy Plum Sauce

Savory Ingredients with the Sweet

Recipe from Jon

Because our Mirabelle plum is an overachiever, producing huge amounts of sweet-tart yellow plums every year, I’ve wanted to make plum sauce for a long time. This year my new friend Jon, a master of sauces, dips, and all things Asian, graced me with a recipe. This plum sauce has the characteristic sweet-sour-pungent flavor interplay, plus quite a kick from the red chili flakes and large amount of ginger. In truth, I didn’t quite use the recommended chili dosage, choosing instead a heat zone with moderate and pleasant afterburn. The key is to taste the mixture at various points as you prepare it. Jon points out that tasting is also important to achieve your ideal level of Chinese Five Spice. Different batches of Five Spice and red chili flakes vary in strength, so feel free to fine-tune this recipe to your own tastes and ingredients.

Plum Cobber AKA Plum Crisp

Late Season Black Plum Crisp

Recipe by Mary

Two things that many Americans remember from their childhoods are family friends and fruit cobblers. Our parents’ friends become our own friends as we share experiences that become treasured memories of our childhood. We might not see these friends frequently as we age, but they are forever in our hearts. When we do talk, it seems as if no time has passed. Like old friends who are always there for us, so are fruit cobblers: easy to be with, reassuring, and nostalgic. Old friends and cobblers remind us of our youth, of summers gone by. And a cobbler made by an old friend gives us a double dose of comfort.

Plum Upside Down Cake

Plum Upside Down Cake: Top with Cream, or Not

Recipe by Bruce’s Mom

Collecting and preserving family recipes was one of my motivations in creating Seasonal Eating. Rarely are these recipes written down in step-by-step format. Often they are written as quick reminders to a cook who has made the recipe many times and doesn’t need details. And when this cook passes away, we inherit the notes, make the recipe, and it doesn’t taste quite the same. Yet with each experiment we fine-tune the process and sometimes the ingredients, until our results match our memories. My husband Bruce says that this cake is very close to his Mom’s Satsuma Plum Upside-down Cake, even with the substitution of yellow plums.

Preserving American Plums in Honey Sauce

Serve Now or in Winter

Happy Girl Kitchen

As recently as last week I’d never heard of an American plum, also known as a wild plum. But according to locals, we have one in our yard. “Prunus americana is over these (Santa Cruz) mountains!” said an old timer at the nursery. In the few years we’ve been here, fruit has been tiny, red, and not edible-looking, and the tree’s identity mystified even our arborist friend. This year, after pruning by said arborist, branches are heavy with small, yellow, tangy plums. Because of its placement, right beside a fence post and snuggled up too close to a parking spot, hubby Bruce suspects the tree is a volunteer. According to folks at the nursery, the American plum volunteers readily throughout the central and eastern US as well in these coastal mountains. What could be better than a fruit-producing volunteer, even if we need to move a parking spot?

DIY Prunes from Plums

Prune Plums After

Method by Robin

In autumn, a young woman’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of…prunes? OK, I made that up. Since I’m no longer a young woman, how would I know? But a middle aged woman who spies the last of the season’s prune plums at her favorite natural foods store…that I can speak to. Prunes make are a naturally sweet snack that’s a fun way to enjoy fruit in winter. Don’t believe me? How about if they’re preserved in brandy afterwards? Dipped in chocolate? But I digress…

Poppyseed Bread with Yellow Plum Glaze

Unusual, and Unusually Delish

Recipe by Leslie

I’ve wanted to try this recipe for decades. My former housemate Leslie, the sweetest person in the world, created it. I joined the household a year after they’d grown poppies in the garden and she’d perfected the recipe through trial and error. Sadly, they didn’t grow poppies the year I moved in. This bread is more well-endowed with poppyseeds than most, and frosted with an unusual stone fruit spread that’s essentially jam and butter mixed together. The taste combination of the crunchy, subtly spiced cake and sweet-tart fruity topping are indescribable. You’ll have to try it to know it.

Apricot-Plum Stuffing for Apricot-Honey Glazed Hens

Apricot-Honey Glazed Hen with Apricot-Plum Stuffing

Recipe by Robin, inspired by Hawaii Kai Cookbook

Although you could choose to stuff something besides hens this, as I’d said in my Apricot Glazed Cornish Hens post, I wanted to create a stuffing for the hens with local California apricots, plums, and almonds. My first attempt was a success, largely due to some panko breadcrumbs that I happened to have on hand from a failed recipe. I’ve read that you can make your own panko crumbs by leaving a slice of white bread out overnight and crumbling it up the next day.