Plum Jam Recipe

Have you ever made jam before?

I think maybe one of the reasons I haven't tried was because I thought the process was going to be long and hot with a ton of mess but I was SO wrong!

Big shout-out to Pacific Northwest Fresh for constantly pushing the envelope with items I have never really tried before, like Italian Plums. Locally grown in the Yakima Valley they are pretty small but pack a big punch.

The ingredients you'll need

1 pound of Italian Plums (quartered and pitted)

3/4 cups sugar

The juice of half a lemon

 First your going to wash all your Italian Plums. slice them in half, pull out the pits and quarter them

I decided to not waste any lemon and zested it before I sliced to store for upcoming recipes and then grabbed my juice

Grab a bowl that will fit all your plums, your sugar and your lemon juice. Stir to evenly distribute, cover and store in the fridge for a minimum of 8 hours. I ended up keeping it in there for about 24 hours in the end.

Once you are ready to get your jam on all you need for the jam is small pot, a spoon, a small plate that will be stored in the fridge and twenty minutes of uninterrupted time because you'll need to stir to make sure nothing gets stuck to the bottom of your pan.

Start off on high for a few minutes and then let it simmer for twenty minutes. Stirring the make sure nothing sticks. That plate, needs to be stored in the freezer for after your twenty minutes.

After twenty minutes take the plate out of the freezer and drop a teaspoon of jam onto the plate. If it stays in one spot after a minute you are good. If it's still runny, keep cooking and check again after another ten minutes.

I had to laugh before I was on a roll. I had my left-over pesto jar to pour the jam in for storage but first you have to process your jar with the lid not too tight in boiling water for ten minutes. You are doing this to seal the jar...you can't do that with a used pesto jar. Thanks Debra, always something to learn, apparently you can't use your jar tops again for jamming so I will not be turning this into a business, for now haha!

Take it off the burner with tongs or baking mittens, tighten the lid and sit upside down on a cooling rack until no longer warm. You can store your new jam in the fridge for a few weeks!

It's tart and sweet all at the same time and I am very excited to try it on toasted English Muffins with butter, toast and maybe even test it out with some ice cream. So the next time you see some berries maybe you could turn them into some jam for the whole fam.