One of Mia and my favorite fruits are Apricots. We are fortunate to have a tree planted in our backyard which we placed there about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, some type of blight took one half of the tree last year and I don't know if the other side of the tree will die off next year,  but this year we had a wonderful crop of fruit. If you have never had a home grown apricot, I encourage you to find someone who might be willing to share, you will be hooked.

As usual, the fruit all ripen within a few days of each other and we cannot eat the abundant crop. Too, some friends of ours have two very large trees and brought us some of their crop and I would never turn down an apricot. Of course, I made Mia her favorite cobbler, ate to my heart's content and then set off to preserve the rest of my crop.

I canned many jars of Apricots, in jars which are perfect for making one of my cobblers. Mia will be surprised in the Fall and Winter when she has forgotten about the fruit of my labor. After canning enough for cobblers I made some Apricot Pancake and Waffle Syrup and bottled it in some new syrup bottles I was able to find. Adorable, square bottles with white porcelain caps and rubber stoppers closed with old fashioned bales are perfect for my syrup. If I come into any more cots, I will definitely make more syrup, they will make wonderful gifts.

While Apricots are in the plum family, Plums are not my favorite fruit. I will eat one or two and have made jam but usually will skip any plums I am offered. A friend of ours offered us some of her plums and I politely declined but my mom who was in the room said she would take some. An hour later, Peggy returned to our store with many pounds of plums. At the end of the day, Mom took two plums home with her and left 10 pounds of ripe plums for me to feel guilty wasting. Mia scooped up the plums and took them home that night and placed them in our back porch where they would over-ripen and eventually be thrown away. What a waste!

I knew we would never use the jam if I made it and I already had plenty of Strawberry and Apricot Jam I would use as gifts. After a burst of energy I decided today I would use up the fruit in a way I would actually use and so I did. I made a huge batch of delicious, Plum Sauce (Duck Sauce) and canned it in beautiful jars. I will thoroughly enjoy using the homemade Plum Sauce for Roast Pork, a dip for my egg rolls and in stir fry. I prefer it to the tradional Hoisin Sauce that is usually serve with Moo shu pork so I see Moo shu on our horizon. Still, I made way too much Plum Sauce so I have plenty to gift to others and did not waste one single Plum.

Back to work, I see Mia has already gotten the ingredients for Egg Rolls!