The Perpetual Feast

I am making the plum strudel again, for no particular reason other than 1) I need to do it again so I can post it after my disastrous initial attempt, 2) a friend of mine and I are running errands and we plan to come back to the house for tea, and 3) still too many plums left.  I decided to use the same plum mixture as I did before, since it tasted good.  I used 3 cups of plums rather than 4, because it seemed to me that 4 cups was too much to fit in the dough, and I added flour to the mix, like the apples, to absorb some of the copious plum juice.  But the biggest change was that I handled the phyllo dough like the apple strudel recipe, rather than the elaborate procedure for layering that I tried before.

Plum Strudel

3 cups thinly sliced plums
¼ – ½  cup packed brown sugar (depending upon how sweet your plums are and how sweet you want your filling – mine was a bit tart)
¼ cup diced pitted prunes (I only had the orange essence prunes, but they worked fine)
½ teaspoon grated orange or lemon rind
8  sheets frozen phyllo pastry, thawed
Butter-flavored cooking spray
½ teaspoon cinnamon-sugar or granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare a large baking sheet or jelly roll pan by spraying with butter-flavored cooking spray.

Toss the plums, brown sugar, prunes, and rind in a large bowl.

Place 1 phyllo sheet on a large work surface (cover remaining dough to keep from drying); lightly coat phyllo sheet with cooking spray. Place one phyllo sheet at a time atop the others, coating each with cooking spray as you stack the layers. Place a sheet of plastic wrap over stacked phyllo, pressing gently to seal sheets together; discard plastic wrap.

Spoon plum mixture along 1 long edge of phyllo, leaving a 2-inch border (it will actually cover most of the phyllo). Fold over the short edges of phyllo to cover 2 inches of plum mixture on each end.

Starting at long edge with 2-inch border, roll up jelly-roll fashion. (Do not roll tightly, or strudel may split.) Place strudel, seam side down, on the prepared pan. Score diagonal slits into top of strudel using a sharp knife. Lightly spray strudel with cooking spray and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake 35 minutes or until golden brown. This makes 8 servings at about 1 gram of fat/serving.

Doesn’t this look better than the last one

And it tasted good, too.

Confession. This plum strudel was just determined to give me trouble. I forgot to defrost the phyllo dough last night, so I put it in a warm place on top of the stove while I ate breakfast and then made the filling. Unfortunately, the spot was too warm, and part of the dough baked while thawing.  I cut the sheets in half and only used the unbaked halves, but it was kind of a patch together job. Fortunately, phyllo is flaky, and it is hard to tell if the flakes are natural or part of the patch job.

My plum tree is covered in plums!  Stanley (that’s the tree’s name. It’s a Stanly plum tree) has dark dusky plums hanging in clusters everywhere.

Now Stanley was not always a prolific tree. In fact, for the first five years, he bore no fruit, despite the fact that he grew full and leafy and made delightful shade. Stanleys are self-pollinating, so I was rather disappointed in his lack of productivity. Then I bought a tall, elegant self-pollinating cherry tree that I planted next to Stanly. The very first summer, that tree produced a handful of sweet, succulent cherries. So I took the handful of cherries and held them out in front of Stanley. “This” I told him firmly, “is what you are supposed to do. If I don’t see plums next year, I’m going to chop you down and put in another cherry tree.”  Next summer, Stanley produced over 40 pounds of plums. Don’t tell me it’s because of the presence of a pollinating tree next to him. I don’t want to hear science. I want to think that my stern lecture worked. In subsequent years, he’s varied in production from 5 pounds to 30-40 pounds. Last year he sulked because I had him pruned. This is a 40 pound year, I’m sure.

I’ve been out in the cool of the morning picking plums. I picked about 5 pounds when they were really not at peak ripeness, but if I wait to pick them when they are all perfectly ripe, I’ll have 40 pounds of ripe plums to deal with.  Besides, I rather like the tart sweet flavor of the young plums. (Warning – these are sometimes called prune plums.  If you eat them by the handful – well, you know the result!) The plums are also great to cook with at this stage.  Then I picked all of the plums I could reach standing on the ground and bending down the branches. There are still a lot of plums up higher in the tree, which require a ladder to pick.

One of my favorite things to do with Stanley plums is to poach them in port and top them with sour cream or whipped cream. (I think this would also be good with other sweet wines, such as sherry). This is really not a precise recipe.  Put plums (as many as you want to eat or serve) in a heavy pot. You can pit them if you want or cook them with the pits in.  Pour port wine into the pot about half way up the plums. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat and simmer, turning them over occasionally, until the plums are soft but still hold their shape. This is very sweet; you do’t need to add sugar. Serve warm, topped with non-fat sour cream.  This has essentially 0 grams of fat.

For guests, you can also top them with a dollop of whipped cream.  Or cook them down so they are mushy and a spoon them over low fat ice cream – but be sure to count the fat grams in the whipped cream or ice cream.

Now excuse me while I dine on ported plums and a cup of hot tea and drift off for a nap.