Sand Plum Jam

The crock pot comes in hand for lots of things!  It is one thing that i think that NO house should be without.  You can cook a ton of things in it and not heat up your house.  They come in tons of sizes to match any job.  When talking with my mom about the easiest way to cook the plums down, she recommended I use the crock pot.  It was super easy.  Let me tell you about the process.

Cleaning the plums.

First you want to clean the sand plums.  When doing this remove the stem and look for any bad spots.  I had quite a few that were squishy that I tossed into my chicken bowl.  They would have probably been ok, but The girls need treats too!  When I was done washing them I tossed them in the crock pot.

Filling the crock pot up with clean plums.

Once the crock pot is super full, put the lid on it and set the temp to low.  I let my cook over night and by morning the house was smelling wonderful and the sand plums were ready!  I did add a little water to make sure they didn't burn to the bottom.

Cooking away!

The next day I threw them into my food mill.  Once I had them all ran though I put the juice and pulp into a picture and set it ino my fridge until I was ready to make jelly.  

Jam ready for a bath.

The Jam did not take too long to make.  I accidentally screwed up when making it.  But, it came out just fine.  I added the sugar before I was supposed to.  Dang directions!  The following is the recipe I used.  It came out of the pectin box.

5 cups of Sand Plum juice

1/2 cup of Apple juice

6 1/2 cups of sugar

box of pectin

Bring juices and pectin to a full boil.  Add sugar, stir constantly, and bring to a boil.  Boil for 1 minute.  STIR STIR STIR.  Check for consistency and set up on a spoon.  You should be good to pack in jars.  Make sure to wash your jars.  It is super important to put hot stuff in HOT jars.  I learned my lesson on that one!

Process in a water bath for 5 minutes.  (Don't forget to add a minute for every 1000 ft in altitude.)

It tastes soooo good.  We might have to go back and pick some more!