Vintage 2010

I'd be 'shamed to admit it except I know I'm not the only one finding two-year-old stuff way back in her freezer. Summer of 2010 I'd had excess red plums and not wanting to chuck them, looked up on the Net how to preserve them. I could can them with glass jars and a pressure cooker or "wet pack," freezing fruit slices in sugar syrup. Waste not want not, I said, and did the wet packing, not believing it would work. Fast-forward to opening the container in 2012. Not freezer-burnt. Delicious and sweet. Would be great over ice cream or plain cake. In fact even better than the original plums. When it's time, I am deliberately going to buy too many plums -- for the rest of my life.

I Preserve Stuff

Your mom, my mom, sweating in the kitchen in August, boiling jelly and jars -- I was allergic to doing canning myself. But then there's freezing. I hope it inspires you that I tried it and did it. It's easy. Here you see my pineapple, red plums, and mango. Oh, do try it!

I followed the instructions at pickyourown.org, skinning the mangoes and plums by dunking them in boiling water, cooling and then peeling. Sliced them. The pineapple, I cut into spears. Placed slices in freezer-safe containers. Made a cooked syrup solution, 3 cups of sugar to 4 cups of water. To prevent browning, spiked this with 1500 mg of ascorbic acid (I crushed and dissolved three pills of Vitamin C). Poured cooled syrup over fruit. Put in freezer.

I chose syrup pack over dry pack, because syrup pack preserves texture better, and retards freezer burn. You can always rinse the syrup off.

Once again, as in '08, this ain't a year to waste food!