Homemade Plum Jam

I have a plum tree ~ on my front lawn,  about every other year I get a big crop of plums.  But the birds get to them first - they peck at them, they fall on the lawn and go splat :(  We mostly spend our time picking up the mess of plums off the lawn.  But this year I tried to save some and pick some out of the tree before they fell, not an easy task - because most of them grow very high.  I was able to salvage a bunch and asked my facebook friends  for suggestions on what to make with them.  What great responses I got and the overwhelming and convincing suggestion was to make plum jam.   They were making me hungry with comments like these:"
Plum jam...best in the world
It has always been a favorite here..alittle tart and sweet at the same time. On a nice hot buttered biscuit its just simply fantastic
I also vote for Plum Jam, too! Easy and delicious and can be enjoyed all year round! Have fun with your plums!!
We always made plum jelly or preserves!!! Yummy!!
I used to make plum jelly every Labor Day when we lived in VT. Beautiful purple color!
Jelly!
Jam!
So there was my decision, now to look for a recipe.  I found an easy one from a great book "Rustic Fruit Desserts":  
 
available here:
http://astore.amazon.com/rosscoubak-20/detail/1580089763

You can use any fruit with this recipe:
2 cups peeled and chopped plums or other fruit
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon


Put all ingredients in a medium, heavy saucepan and cook over high heat, stir occasionally to avoid any burning on bottom of pan.  Skim off any foam that gathers on the surface.  Attach a candy thermometer to the side of pan, boil the jam for at least 5 minutes, and until the temperature reaches 221 degrees.  Remove from heat and store in a mason jar in the refrigerator.  This jam will keep for a few weeks.

My plums cut up

In the pot with sugar and lemon juice, getting ready to become jam :)

 Inside the jar, it really turned into jam!

Goes good on a corn muffin!

My first jam, yay!

             Now the plums I was able to save were not the purplest, the flesh was more orange/yellow so it yielded the jam above.  The taste was very fresh and delicious, in between a plum-nectarine taste.  If you use very ripe purple plums you should yield a purple jam like some of my readers.  I am going to try this again if I could get some really ripe ones from my tree, or from the farmstand.  Thanks everyone for encouraging me to make jam - it's opened a whole new food world for me!!!

Now it's your turn, go ahead try it out with your favorite fruit :)