Prunes, prunes, prunes! Recipe to the rescue (1/3)

Loud alarum! Magnitudes of prunes ripen on trees: yellow, red, green and deep blue. Much too early, because our weather is out of whack. They need picking and a plan. Here are three of my favorite ways to eat them.

First, a German recipe with these bright red prunes for prune compote, which I found very appealing, because it has little sugar and it uses the oven.  It takes a little over two hours of work.

Prune compote

Fills 6-7 glass containers

3 kg prunes
750 g sugar
1 knife tip ground cloves
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
rum (optional)


Preheat the oven at 175 °C.

Wash, dry and pit prunes, and cut in pieces. Softly stew in their own juices until slightly soft, use a mixer to mix them even more. This is necessary for a smooth consistence - I mixed after the first take in the oven, as it was easier. Season with cinnamon and cloves.


Take a large non-greasy oven container. Work in three stages:

1. Add the prunes to the container + 200 g sugar. Mix well, then bake for 30 minutes.

2. Remove prunes from oven, add another 200 g sugar. Mix, bake for 30 minutes.3. Remove prunes from oven, add the remaining amount of sugar, mix well once, bake for another 60 minutes.

 

Remove from oven, put in immaculately cleaned glass jars and lids, possibly with some special foil drenched in rum over the top (or place the jars on their heads to cool after filling them). This amount is only a nano fraction of the entire prune availability, but this will get me through winter.