Simple pleasures of the summer's harvest

Last week my dad came down for a visit. He actually came to meet with his sisters, but I was fortunate to have him stay with me for the week. With him he brought a 5 gallon bucket full of plums. I was THRILLED. I have been wanting to make jam all summer but didn't have the quantity of fruit I needed and felt it was frivolous to buy that much fruit just for jam. So, one afternoon between meetings I set to work. And I chopped fruit and cooked it up and added sugar and pectin and boiled jars and lids and made jam. I made 4 batches and came out with 20 some jars...something like that anyway. The majority of the jars I had were quart size....a.k.a. large family jars and they seem a bit excessive, but the jam is so good, I hardly think they'll mind. Plum jam might be my all time favorite. It's good not just on bread, but as a filling in a cake, or heated up and poured over vanilla ice cream. So good. It was nice to be able to be productive in the kitchen. I am out so often and have leftovers from many of the meals I share at a restaurant with a parishioner or colleague that I am hardly in the kitchen these days even though it's the nicest and largest I've had in years.

Here's to some natural sugary, fruity goodness!!