Thursday, September 25, 2008

Plum Ridiculous

My next door neighbor, The Lesbian, has some fabulous plums.

Not those! Sheesh. These.

Never fails. Since her tree is on the other side of her house, I never see it very much and I always forget about the damn plums until the tree is ready to burst. Anyways, we send the Resident Tree Climber From Across The Street (also known as "shwimbo"; She Who Must Be Obeyed) up on her mission: Pick!

The haul? Damn near 80 pounds. What to do with them? Give bunches away. The Lesbian took almost 50 pounds to Denver General, and the staff and patients did much damage, demolishing the haul. The rest? Half in fresh fruit amongst 6 of us neighbors, the rest in JAM. Belch and I set up the Outdoor Jam Processing And Stuff To Can Other Goodies Unit.


You get a Big Ass Pot and cook down 15 pounds of those suckers. Add way too much sugar and pectin.


Then CAN THE BITCHES!

You end up with this:

While we had the Outfit up and running, it dawned on me, "Hey, I have all the stuff to make a shitload of Chutney Hot Enough To Make A Hindu Scream. Let's make some!"

Green tomatoes, Cayennes, Thai Hots, Jalapenos, Loads Of Mint all were just laying around in the garden, and miraculously there just happened to be some apples onions and raisins in the pantry.

Observing me on my rampage, Mr. B was not about to be left out of the game. He's all "Hey, aren't you gonna pick those goddamn cukes? They look ready to me."

You pick 'em Mr. Smarty Pants.
He did.


And a armload of dill too.
At the end of the day, much propane, much produce, and about 100 beers later, we ended up with this collection:

10 quarts of dill pickles, 12 pint and 12 half pints of Plum jam, 3 and a half pints of Death Chutney.
Not a bad haul for a Sunday.