Homemade Plum Jam

Hard times teaches us to be resourceful, and healthy living teaches us that it is better to go through the trouble and bring out all your pots and pans and have a wonderful homemade but preservative-free food.

with those two in mind, i bought south african plums from MaxValu last night - selling at rm1.69 per 100g (it was further reduced to rm1.49). well i thought that was cheap, so i bought a few (cost me rm5++), went home, and started to de-stone the dark purple fruits, cut them into small pieces, and cook them on the stove over a slow fire. i had the chance to pop a few pieces into my mouth, and they were heaven! the plums were ripe, and so they tasted not like the tart, unripe ones, but they tasted more like ripe peaches or nectarine!

when they're cooking on the stove, the red colour from the skin just melted and you will have deep dark almost fuschia like colour. you can add sugar if you want, and it might be better if you can add in some lemon zest and lemon juice. me, i just forgot to buy one last night. the quest for healthy eating has seen me buying no added sugar peanut butter, marmalade for the diabetics and olive oil fat spread. so it's no surprise when i decided to minimalise the sugar used in the jam making. initially i didn't want to add any sugar at all and thought the sweetness would help to mellow the tartness. i was dead wrong, because it was so tart, my face just wrinkled! so i added 2 tablespoons of sugar, and it was definitely an improvement. you should cook the fruits until the mixture is no longer runny. cool the mixture, and then store in an airtight container.

and this morning, in my excitement i ate my homemade bread with such gusto - the jam is a perfect consistency, but it's still taaaarrrttt!!!

anyway, the most important thing is to reduce eating processed food, and to eat cooked food that is not that oily not that sweet and the most most important thing is that, it is cooked with love.