Yellow Plum Pectin Free Freezer Jam

So we finally moved into our house this weekend, only a month late, but better late then never, right?  My parents were helping us with the move, but they also were responsible this weekend for checking on my sister's four-legged children who were home alone. 

 On one of their trips to her house they picked these gorgeous yellow (golden) plums from her tree. My kids had never seen yellow plums (which they love in the purple variety) and so they were in heaven.  I am probably going to be finding pits "stashed" in places for quite a while because they enjoyed grabbing one while they were walking through the kitchen carrying boxes. (What a great energy source! Even if I am going to have to pick up pits that got spit out on the garage floor - don't be bitter, self, don't be bitter)

But Sunday night, I still had plenty of plums and three of my kids returned home to their mom. Monday morning another one started school and that leaves me with just myself and the three youngest here. There was no way we were going to make it through these plums before they went bad - and so, we decided to make them into jam. Because nothing says, "I'm crazy" like instead of unpacking boxes you make jam. 

First I had to find a recipe. That isn't too hard nowadays with the internet. There are a billion recipes for just about anything and you can tell whether people liked them or not too.  I just googled "yellow plum jam" and there were so many choices. But as I got reading, I discovered that I had neither pectin to add to my jam or a canning system to seal the jars for long term storage. That leaves me looking for a pectin free recipe of freezer jam. (At least I was looking for something specific, right?)

Here and Here are the two recipes / instructions that I used. Especially the second one from Savory Sweet Life.  So.... Let's get started.

The first thing to do was wash the plums really well and then remove the stone inside. This was the most time consuming part, but this is also the part where I had the most help.

I would cut the plums and then have the kids pull the slices of fruit off the pit and put the slices into the pyrex we were using. 

We added the fruit to a large pot and cooked it on medium for about 5 minutes. Then we added the sugar and a bit of lemon juice and cooked it some more. 

After about 20 minutes, it started to get really foamy and so I turned the heat off and scooped as much of the foam off as I could. 

 Then I let it cool for about 45 minutes. I don't know if this is an actual official step, but I made putting it into jars a little easier with little ones around.

 And here is our beautiful finished jam. One jar is sitting in the fridge waiting to be eaten and the other is in the freezer. Because I did not use a canner and heat seal the jars these have to be stored in the freezer for food safety. I could have used plastic containers to put the jam in, but it looks so much nicer in the glass jars.

I made biscuits for lunch today and so we had biscuits and jam for lunch. It was a hit and both of the boys declared it to be the very best jam they had ever made!