Today I made an apple pie which is always a chore using gluten free pie crusts. I mutter a lot of bad words under my breath and occasionally chuck the entire mix into the garbage, but today I was feeling less frustrated so I persevered.
Fortunately it always tastes good, even if the crust is a real pain to work with. Dan says the crust is kind of hard this time, and the apples are a bit chewy but still it tastes good. He loves pies.
I also made some pluot jam with some golden pluots we picked up at the fruit stand. Pluots are a cross between plums and apricots, and they come in a lot of different colors. I’ve never seen golden pluots before, so I had to get some to make into jam.
I divided the pluots into six batches, and started a pot of water boiling on the stove. I put 10 pluots at a time in the hot water, and as soon as the skins start to split, I move them to a cold water bath.
Then it’s super easy to peal them, and cut them up into little pieces.
Once all the pluots have been deposited into the pan, I start the heat under the fruit and get it nice and hot, and then I add all the sugar, a cup at a time, stirring constantly until it is all incorporated into the fruit juice before adding another cup of sugar. I don’t use pectin, so it takes a while to cook it down. Because I don’t use pectin, I don’t have to use as much sugar.
And then the jam just gets cooked down until it is thick enough.
While the fruit is cooking, I also have jars and lids boiling in a large pan, waiting for the jam to get thick enough, and when it is, I put the boiling hot jam into a hot jar freshly removed from boiling water, and set the filled jars on a tea towel to cool. The fun part is waiting for the jar lids to say poink! That sounds announces the jars have sealed and I can label them and put them away in the pantry.