Pink Saturday - what a plum

Pink Saturday - Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!

When we bought our property, there were mature fruit trees on it. We have two lemon trees, an apricot tree, and a plum tree. There was also an orange tree, but it wasn't doing well, and it was removed in a garden remodel.

The plum tree is a red, Santa Rosa type plum, not an Italian prune type plum. It bears round fruit that start green and blush first golden, then pink, then red and finally deep violet. The skin shows a beautiful frosty bloom.

The fruits are plump, usually with a pronounced crease, for all the world like a shapely tender bottom.

The flesh is golden, tinged with red close to the stone. They aren't free-stone plums - where the stone come cleanly away from the flesh. You have to bite through the juicy pulp right down to the stone.

The birds and animals here love the plums, and usually steal or spoil them before they ripen enough to pick. But each year we get a few to make tarts or preserves.

The quantity varies from year to year - it seems that every abundant year is followed by a sparse year. Last year, there were so many plums the branches bent heavily to the ground.

I harvested them and made spiced plum and red onion pickles - delicious as a condiment with pork or roast fowl. We just recently finished the last of last summers' jars.

But this year, our crop is small. I'm not sure what to do with them. Perhaps this weekend I should make a new batch of pickles, or some jam.

Or instead, maybe I should make a tart, or a rustic crostata, like this one pictured here from last year - we ate it up while it was still warm.

What would you do, with this delicious midsummer bounty?

Have a happy and safe July 4th, everyone!