Do you remember my beautiful plum tree I showed you back in the spring? No matter if you don´t. I knew back then from the enormous amount of blossom it had, following the rainiest winter for over 80 years in Andalucía, that we would have lots and lots of plums.
Of course, we did and we´ve been eating and enjoying them, giving a lot away, and the chickens have thoroughly enjoyed pecking away at those that fell to the ground.
A couple of weeka ago the plums really were coming to an end. The last few clinging on to the tree were looking a little sad and soft, so I decided to turn them into a kind of compôte (rather like a jam) to drizzle over my porridge, or oatmeal, in the winter months. It´s also delicious with ice cream!
You can either peel and stone the plums first, or do as I did – boil and squish! I put them in a large pot and on a gentle heat for about 30 minutes, by which time the skins had popped and the plums were soft.
On with the kitchen gloves and I removed all the stones and skin, then passed the fruit through my trusty mouli. You could also use a stick or regular blender. The prepared fruit weighed 2.3 kgs, so I added just under half the weight of sugar (1kg) and the juice of one lemon. As this started to warm and the sugar dissolved, I added 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence and 2 sticks of cinnamon.
I let it boil quite hard for 5 minutes, removed the cinnamon sticks then poured it into sterilised jars. Now I´m ready for the cold weather and already anticipating my first bowl of porridge with Perfect Plum Compôte!
And now, a confession. I made this last year too (minus the vanilla) and earlier this year I was making ragú for my pasta and fumbling around in my despensa (that´s a little Spanish larder) when I grabbed a jar of this instead of tomato conserva. Can you believe I didn´t notice the difference? We even ate the pasta, initially saying things along the lines of “gosh, you can really taste the sweetness of the tomatoes coming through”. Eventually we decided that the taste was overly sweet (even the minced meat, garlic and red wine couldn´t compete) and the realization of what I had done dawned on me. Not a recipe I´ll be repeating….still can´t believe that we ATE it!!!
Chica Andaluza 
This really does sound good and your plum tree was beautiful last Spring. I love compote and should give your plum recipe a try. I just don’t know about using it to dress pasta …
Really can´t recommend enough keeping away form the plum and pasta combo – horrible!
Sounds delicious – I don’t normally eat sweet things, but I’d like to try that at least once 😉
I think I might pass on plum pasta, though I seem to remember trying chocolate spaghetti somewhere…
I´d always choose savoury over sweet, but sometimes I just need a little kick of energy and something like this does the trick. Avoid the plum pasta at all costs!
that is so funny, mistaking the plum for tomato.. I used to make a plum sauce you know that is very like a conserva so if it were my dispensa I could forgive the mistake.. but your plum jam sounds delicious and easy.. pity my plum tree is still only hip height!!
I guess we´ve all made kitchen mistakes – salt for sugar etc, but this was a particularly memorable one! Your tree will soon be givng you fruit I´m sure – we have a “hip height” fig tree and it has four figs on it!
Ha! That’s funny! You ate pasta and plum sauce. Your plum jam looks great!
Plum sauce great, plum pasta bad. Very bad 😦
hehehe..maybe you should make a twist on the recipe..skip the meat and make it into a dessert pasta with some fruits and raisins perhaps..
ok no more reading posts at 4 am for me
That´s a thought, maybe with a custard sauce?! Hope you managed to get some sleep…I do the same thing sometimes and it wakes you up even more as you start to surf recipes.
That looks and sounds delicious, and it’s so good to have jars stored for the winter, isn’t it? I laughed, rather warily, at your pasta story – I can see that happening here because we sometimes forget to label jars!
Thank you – it is really nice if you fancy a dollop of sweetness on something. When you mentioned forgetting to label jars it reminded me of my grandparents who were great ones for buying reduced tins of food (why, why?!) back when I was little. You´d be waiting all excited for a tin of fruit salad or tangerine slices for pudding and end up with boiled potatoes or meat pie filling…not so good, but funny now when I look back on it!
Always good to try new flavours even though by accident. 😉 I love the idea of boil and squish – must easier than stoning the fruit first.
Have a happy week.
🙂 Mandy
Should have patented the boil and squish method .- it works well for me!
How happy you will be when winter starts and you have some summer goodness to enjoy! I wish I could lay my hands on enough plums to try this, it sounds amazing 🙂
That´s one of the nice things about winter – all the goodies in jars or in the freezer from the summer!
Too funny, but I am pretty sure that is often how great dishes are “born”, by happy accident! This looks so pretty, and I love vanilla. It is a bit like salt, makes everything taste *more*… mmmmmm!
Rest assured, this was “not” a great dish…but a good one to look back on for a giggle! And yes, vanilla…..mmmmm!
I’d love it if you added your plum post to the canning link up on my blog today!
Will do – it will be an honour!
I wonder if you could make a dessert pasta with this. Chocolate flavored lasagna noodles and ricotta cheese and fruit spread with your delicious plum compote?
A few people have mentioned this now…I think I might just have to rise to the challenge of “sweet” pasta!
🙂 That’s very funny that you hadn’t noticed straight away it was the plum. I’m sure it was still delicious!
Well, it wasn´t totally disgusting (we ate it after all!) but it was very, very sweet. Crazy people not to tell the difference on the first taste!
Wow you really are making the most out of the bounty your property offers. I’m telling you lock that pantry!
It might have to be one with a security code – I think my friends are expert lock pickers!
Lovely, they look delicious and I wish I had some. Our plum trees were full of blossoms this past spring but we had a total of two plums on two trees. The same as the fig. T says it is a rest year. They have been producing like mad for several years now, we also have one apple tree that had, notice I said had, three apples and it has lost two… almost comical, the other apple trees are doing real good, maybe I will get some apple butter….RaeDi
It´s too hot here for decent apples and the ones we can buy are pretty revolting…so enjoy the bounty from your apple trees!
OMG too funny… on your pasta!! Actually you may be on to something if sweet pasta is what you’re after! I so envy you canners out there! How great to be able to open a jar of summer memories!
It´s funny but I´d never really thought of myself as a “canner”…but now I realise how much stuff I do can, I guess it´s official!
Mmmmmm, plum compote with pasta – sounds like you’re competing with the Italians here! 😉
I still can’t believe how creative one can be in the kitchen! Your recipes never cease to amaze me!
It wasn´t my finest hour! And if the Italian branch of the family were ever to find out what I did…well, there would be a lot of explaining to do 🙂
Looks great! Wonder where I can put in a few plum trees…. 🙂
aah . there´s always a little space somewhere!
My daughter likes her pasta with jam, though without mince. I also eat it this way occasionally – not bad at all.
Was surprised to see the word “compote” in English. We use the same word (компот) speaking about fruit drink.
We use the french word compote – not sure why…maybe we didn´t have one of our own!
We used to have the most beautiful Japanese Plum tree next to the house in New Hampshire. The yellow plums were the best I ever tasted. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in a bad ice storm several years ago. You must have had such a lovely crop of plums this year.
I never used to be that much of a plum fan (had only really eaten the darker Victoria plums) but these really are something special. Such a shame that your tree didn´t make it through the ice storm. Fortunately it rarely gets that cold where we are.
Plums, cinnamon, and vanilla – sounds mindblowing to me!!! So far, I had only used my mouli for tomatoe sauce, and you just gave me another great idea of using my mouli!! Buenisima receta Chica!!
It´s a useful gadget for quite a few things – I´ve even mashed potato in it! Hope you enjoyed your recent trip, looking forward to reading all about it.
you make this sound so easy!
It is – because you want it runny, you don´t have to wait for setting point like jam…so much easier!