Sand Plum Electrolyte Drink

Besides picking sand plums, we have been doing a lot of work in the yard. It is July and we're inOklahoma. You are going to sweat. I figured a good, homemade electrolyte drink would be nice. I also thought sand plums might add to it a little. This turned out to be very tasty. 

Sand Plum Electrolyte Fizz

11/2 cups sand plum juice

1 cup coconut water

3/4 cup simple syrup or 1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup lime juice

10 ounces tonic water

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground ginger

To keep the ginger from clumping mix it in a couple of tablespoons of the liquid and then add to the rest of the drink. 

Chill and serve over ice!

Sand Plum and Lime Refresher

I have about 3 gallons of sand plum juice in my pantry. A person can really only eat so much jelly in a year. Dilemma? Maybe. But I found at least one solution. Make a drink out of it.

Sand Plum Lime Refresher

1 1/2 cups plum juice

1 cup simple syrup

5 limes juiced

16 ounces ginger ale

Mix in a pitcher and chill. Serve over ice

For the adults you can add a shot of gin or vodka to their glass.  

This is tart like a limeade but really refreshing on a 100 degree day in Oklahoma. 

Plum Crazy

So here I go with the first of several posts about sand plums. First, just what is a sand plum?  It is a small,cherry-sized plum that grows wild (ditches are a good place to find them) all over Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and many other places. They are incredibly tart, even when ripe. Because of that you can pick them in just about any stage of ripeness for use in these eecipes. When fully ripe they are a derp but bright red. The more ripe plums you have the darker red your juice willl be. 

Jelly, jam, and butter seem to be the only things people make with the plums. Since they are so small it is much easier to just make juice and then turn that into jelly and then mash them througj a strainer to get the pulp fpr butter. Here is how you make the juice:

Wash and stem your plums. If you find worm holes you can cut them out or just toss them. They can be quite common or you may only find a few. For every pound iof plums you have add 3/4 cup of water to a large stock pot. Add the plums and bring to a boil. They will boil over so have a large pot and keep an eye on it. Once to a boil let simmer for about 20 minutes. You can remove the juice in a couple of different ways. 1) Line a strainer with cheese cloth or pour through a jelly bag. (This is only important if you want very clear jelly.). 2) don't line the strainer.  3) press a ladle into the plums and juice and then pour that through the strainer.  Once most of the juice is poured off, you can process it in a boiling water bath (10 minutes for pints and 15 for quarts). I am goin to assume that you know how to do that part.  At this time you can also make jelly. Use your favorite plum recipe. It will be tart but it is delicious. 

Juice

Now, what about all those seeds and pulp in your strainer?  Working with just a couple of cups at a time, take a potato masher and mash the pulp throu the strainer into a bowl. Then you can freeze it, turn it into butter, or make fruit leather.

seeds and pulp

Afterashing

Pulp

What if you want a cobbler or crisp?  Well, be ready to do a lot of pitting. These little suckers can be hard to pit. If too ripe they just smash through the pitter, a little under ripe and you will need a large green super hero to help you out. It will take about 3 1/2 pounds of plums to get 2 pounds of pitted plums for an 8-9 inch cobbler or crisp. 

Over the next few posts I will put up some recipes that I have experimented with. Hope you like them. 

Such a Busy Year!

So it's been a while. We have been so busy this past year that there really wasn't time to blog. Not that what we did was just sooo fascinating that you are missing out.  Mostly it was consumed with building a new home. "So?", you may be thinking. Well, WE built it ourselves from the ground up. Clearing trees, dirt work, (one of the few things we had help with), plumbing, electric. Basically we did it all. So that didn't leave much time for anything else, Including a garden. But this year is different. I finally have the garden I always wanted!  It is so easy to care for that I have spent much of the  summer so far picking wild dewberries, blackberries, and sand plums. Especially the sand plums. 

I have made some jam and frozen most of the berries. I also made a cobbler ffor my dad on Father's Day. His favorite and mine too. With the plums I have made some jelly. Surprise there. Well, you're not surprised if you know anything about them. That seems to be all that people make with sand plums. I Googled them and that is almost all you can find recipes for. So I decided to experiment with a few things. My next few posts will be about all I have found to do so far with my sand plums.

Here are a few pics!  

Blackberries

Sand Plums

2 gallons of sand plums

Looking south

Looking west

Day 2 Sourdough

Added 1/2 cup each of filtered water and whole wheat flour. 

Red Wine Vinegar is Ready

After 2 1/2 months of sitting in the pantry the red wine vinegar is finally ready. To be in the safe side I pasteurized it before I bottled it. This requires bringing the vinegar to 170 F and then keeping it at that temperature for ten minutes. I used a total if three bottles (750 ml) and ended up with a quart and about 10 more ounces. Just like the wine, it is a deep burgundy color. Not that rose' color you usually find in the store. I guess now I just have to make something with it to see how it tastes. I'll let you know how that goes.

Now I'm just waiting on the white wine vinegar. Still smells more like wine than vinegar.

Sourdough Try #2

My first attempt at sourdough was back in January. I started my second batch today. 

After searching the web because I had forgotten what I had done the first time, I found something that sounded familiar. I then tweaked it to my liking. After all that I remembered I had blogged it. :-/

Here is what I did today

Starter

1 cup I unbleached all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups room temperature filtered water

Mix in a glass bowl. Cover loosely for 24 hours.

Tune in for results. 

For those who might be wondering, the red wine vinegar turned out fine. The white wine vinegar made great drain cleaner. The mint and almond extracts did not work out either but the lemon and coffee did.