Plum Recipe #4: Plums Flambee!

One of the recipes featured in this weeks Modesto Bee was a recipe for Plums Flambee. The ingredients are pretty basic, they include :

1 pound, 5 ounces plums
2/3 cup cream
1¾ cups marsala or other dessert wine
8 sugar cubes and ½ cup rum

For the full recipe, click here.

If I decide to make it, I'll post the results.

Remember to exercise caution when making flambeed dishes!

Plums Make the Local News

Happily, I opened today's Modesto Bee and saw that plums were featured in the Food Section!

The Fruit and It's Cousin the Pluot are Ready  discusses the impact of this seasons mild spring on plum crops.

Pluots Created by a Modestan talks about the origins and appeals of the pluot.

There are also a few plum recipes to try out!

Plum Recipe #3: Bobby Flay's Caramelized Plum-Ricotta-Black Pepper Crostini

Wowza! I just spotted this recipe while browsing the Food Network site. It looks so simple and I imagine the combination of caramelized plum, creamy ricotta, spicy pepper, and crunchy baguette is amazing.

This recipe would be great as an appetizer or as a dessert served alongside a dessert wine.

Ingredients

• 12 slices French baguette, lightly grilled
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 4 plums, halved, pitted and sliced
• 1 1/4 cups fresh ricotta
• Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Bring the orange juice and sugar to a simmer in a large saute pan, over medium-low heat. Add the plums and cook until slightly softened and caramelized.

Top each piece of bread with some of the plum mixture, then a dollip of ricotta and a sprinkling of black pepper.

How to Tell if a Plum is Ripe

When I buy produce, I make sure that every item put in my bag is ripe and ready to use. An underripe plum is hard, tart, and lacking in the juicy sweetness we associate with plums. So when choosing a plum, be sure to remember the following:

Use your eyes: Color will not tell you if a plum is ripe in all varieties. My plum tree is a purple variety, and the plums are the exact same color when they are ripe as they were when they first began to grow. Lighter colored varieties of plums should be even in color and not look green...unless, of course, it is a green fleshed variety of plum.

Use your nose: Plums smell sweet and fruity when they are ripe. An underripe plum will have little to no scent at all.

Use your hands: A ripe plum is slightly soft with a smooth skin. Avoid hard, mushy, or wrinkled plums.

Happy Picking!

Plum Recipe #2: Plum Upside Down Cake

This recipe for Plum Upside Down Cake comes from MarthaStewart.com. Her site has an entire collection of plum recipes, and not just dessert recipes. There are main dish and salad recipes. too.

To access the entire collection of plum recipes, click here.

For a photo of the finished cake, click here.

Ingredients
9 tablespoons (1 stick, plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
4 red plums (about 1 pound), halved and pitted, each cut into 12 wedges
1 large egg
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1 cup all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin-pie spice
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
Whipped cream, (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place 3 tablespoons butter in an 8-inch round cake pan; melt in preheating oven, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle melted butter with 1/2 cup brown sugar. Arrange overlapping plum wedges in a circle around edge of pan; repeat in center, covering bottom of pan. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat together remaining 6 tablespoons butter, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, and egg. Beat in sour cream until blended. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, pumpkin-pie spice, and walnuts. Stir flour mixture into sour-cream mixture until just combined (batter will be thick).
4. Spread batter evenly over plums. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool in pan 5 minutes. Run a knife around edge of pan; invert onto a serving plate. Serve warm or at room temperature, with whipped cream if desired.

Plum Recipe #1: Plum Sorbet

Plums become ripe at the hottest time of summer. I found this Plum Sorbet recipe by Garrett McCord on SimplyRecipes.com and adapted it to suit my kitchen.

I'm sure the plum sorbet is delicious with any kind of plum, but it is probably the prettiest with with plums whose flesh is pink or purple on the inside.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups sliced plums, pitted
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
A pinch of salt
Optional: 1 tablespoon orange flavored liqueur or substitute with any sweet alcohol. I would use up to 1/4 cup of a dessert wine (muscat, port, etc..). Alcohol isn't necessary, but it will keep any sorbet you want to store in the freezer from freezing into a solid block.

Place the sliced plums, sugar, lemon juice, and salt in a blender and purée until smooth. Push the plum puree through a mesh sieve to sort out the large pieces of plum peel..

Mix the orange liqueur to the purée just before churning. Place the purée in an ice cream machine and churn according to instructions, for approximately 25 minutes. Serve immediately or place in an air tight container and put in the freezer for two hours to firm up.

Yields one quart of plum sorbet.

Just Plums

When we bought out house, we inherited a 20-year-old plum tree which produces massive amounts of plums every year.

Thus the reason for this blog.