What to Do with 40 Pounds of Plums

It was a banner year for our Italian prune plum trees, partly because we’ve been letting the trees get too big.

• Dried 18 pounds for prunes
• Froze 12 pounds for cakes and eating with breakfast oatmeal
• Canned 4 pounds in savory plum sauce (per the Ball Blue Book)
• Canned 2 pounds as preserves (per the Ball Blue Book)
• Made a pie and a bread pudding (per Sharon's tinkering)
• Ate some and gave some away
• Discovered a fabulous way to cook them with pork chops

We often eat pork chops with savory plum sauce, but it seemed silly to open a newly canned jar. Still wanting to have pork and plums, we did the following:

Pork Cutlets with Plums

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 small, thin boneless pork cutlets (~ 3 oz each)
salt and pepper to taste
2 Italian prune plums, diced (~1 oz each)

Heat the oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Rinse cutlets, pat dry, and season both sides with salt and pepper. Add cutlets and plums to skillet. Cover and cook 1 1/2 - 2 minutes on each side, or until done. Serve. The plums will taste slightly of burned sugar, which is part of their divinity. (I can’t really explain the rest – the divine does not easily reveal its secrets.)

You could probably do something similar with larger pork chops – just add the plums later in the cooking process.