The Texas BBQ Forum

Plums are starting to ripen and I'm fighting the squirrels, birds, and coons for them. We have one big tree in the back yard. I'm boiling the ripe ones right now and putting up juice; will start making actual jelly soon.

Is that like plum sauce? How do you use it and with what? I'm picking sammiches, I do a chicken in plum sauce.

Russ

Russ wrote:Is that like plum sauce? How do you use it and with what? I'm picking sammiches, I do a chicken in plum sauce.

Russ

No Sir, not unless I don't understand what you're saying. I take the ripe plums; rinse them; put in a large stainless steel and boil. There's a little more to it than that but I won't bore you. Once it reaches a boil I strain it in a fine sieve to remove any pulp/other so I have pure Plum Juice to make my jelly with

My Mom made black plum jam when I was a kid. She'd put whole cloves in it, and I hated biting down on them! But I have taken up the cause, and now just put in a little powdered clove.

I like the texture and tartness of plum skins, so I just halve or quarter the plums and leave the skins on. Any kind of plum works, but I wait all year for the black ones.

I wanna see your finished product!

I'll post it for you SK, may be a few days

Rambo wrote:I'll post it for you SK, may be a few days

Thanks, Rambo! Our comcoction looks like your first pic, but no pits. I sometimes use lemon or lime zest for the pectin.

Done

I remember that, Mom “putting up” blackberry and wild Mustang grape jelly from berries we picked around Grapevine and Southlake. One of the biggest blackberry brambles in north Texas used to grow right over by the White Chapel Church in Southlake before you got out to Goode Field, close to where Clyde Barrow gunned down 2 State Troopers in ‘34, a month before Frank Hamer and Ted Hinton caught up to him in Louisiana. That bramble was 2 or 300 yards long, about 6 foot high and 6 or 8 foot deep. My Dad leased the 200 acres around the NE corner there to run mares and we’d go out and pick the berries; we’d stay all day and pick 4 or 5 gallons, and then take ‘em home and my Mom would make jelly out and kolaches out of them and freeze up a bunch. Then we’d drive out to to Weatherford to the farmers market, which sells some of the best peaches in the world (from orchards over in the bottoms along the Brazos), and buy several gallons of those which she’d make into kolaches and cobblers, and we’d freeze up a bunch of those too. Come winter, she’d make Maryland crab cakes using her family recipe, then she’d pull out a bag each of blackberries and peaches, thaw them out, and then scoop vanilla ice cream over the whole thing.

You could accurately say my childhood didn’t necessarily suck from the food perspective, though her meatloaf recipe must’ve come from a prison kitchen cookbook. To this day, I can’t stand to look at a can of tomato paste.

But the fresh peaches and blackberries went a long way toward correcting the toxic meatloaf.

Boots, you and I share much in common. I enjoyed what you wrote. FYI - I put up 1 1/3 gallons of juice also so if we decide to do some more for gift giving, etc., I'll have it.

Pretty!

You should try some of that juice for milk sherbet, too.

My Mom used to make wild plum jelly... best I ever had, She got dementia now and does not remember how she made it. Should have asked sooner but who knew.

My b.i.l dropped in the other day, he took some of my preserves including plum sauce I made. He txt my wife that night,he loved it on his dinner that night. I still have about 30 X 1 litre bottles left,lol.

Russ

bobcat1 wrote:My Mom used to make wild plum jelly... best I ever had, She got dementia now and does not remember how she made it. Should have asked sooner but who knew.

Bobcat - If you get your hands on some plums you can follow the recipe in the Sure-Gel package, it's good

Rambo wrote:

bobcat1 wrote:My Mom used to make wild plum jelly... best I ever had, She got dementia now and does not remember how she made it. Should have asked sooner but who knew.

Bobcat - If you get your hands on some plums you can follow the recipe in the Sure-Gel package, it's good

Might just try that. Thanks!

bobcat1 wrote:

Rambo wrote:

bobcat1 wrote:My Mom used to make wild plum jelly... best I ever had, She got dementia now and does not remember how she made it. Should have asked sooner but who knew.

Bobcat - If you get your hands on some plums you can follow the recipe in the Sure-Gel package, it's good

Might just try that. Thanks!

It won't taste quite like the wild plum jelly you remember. I've never done it with Store Bought plums, I don't know where you're at but if you have a Brookshire Brothers try the Blackburns, it pretty darn good.

By the time you buy everything you need to produce the jelly it's cheaper to buy it, much cheaper. Try the Blackburns