Distraction

Have you ever gotten distracted and lost all track of time? Unfortunately it's something that happens to me and even more since I received a brain injury about a year ago. This evening I was going tell you about Pastry/Baker Chef Jobs, then stopped to think what exactly I was going to say.

I ended up going to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, seeing all the plums sitting there waiting for me to make them into jam and a sink full of dishes waiting to be washed. I washed the dishes while the water heated for tea and once the dishes were washed I poured the boiled water over the tea bag in my cup and washed the plums. Since they were washed and in the pot, I turned on the stove and cooked them, put them into a colander and squeezed the fruit through, removing the pits. You see, these are Damson Plums, about the size of a cherry, so the pit is not easily cut out of the plum like it is with larger fruit. I added honey to the cooked fruit and returned it to the heat to cook it down into jam. This is the first time I've made jam using honey instead of the sugar and wanted to give it a try. It seems to have worked very well, though it is much more costly than using sugar. This was the 3rd batch of jam I've made in the last few days, going to my yard to pick more plums as needed. I plan to give jam as gifts this Christmas and have a good stock for my own use. I made the 1st batch 'plain' using just the plums and sugar. The 2nd batch I added some cinnamon to the mix, the first time I did this and it turned out very nice. This, the 3rd batch, I substituted the honey for the sugar. Now I plan to make a batch using brown sugar instead of the white, just to see what it tastes like, and a batch using apples & cinnamon with the plums. I'm not fond of Damson Plums as an eating plum, though I know people who do like them for just munching on. However, when it comes to cooking and jam making I think there is nothing better than the Damson Plum and they are well worth the extra work involved with using the smaller fruit.

Oh ya, I drank cold tea and am now too tired to tell you about anything else. Off I go to bed. Good night.