< INDEX >

Home

Here are a few of my favorite online haunts:

REALTOR.ca
[This is the site I visit to fantasize about living in Toronto again, which is almost every single day during the winter]

Jonathan Cainer's Zodiac Forecasts
[This is where I visit in the morning, when I need a positive spin on things past, present and future.]

Living Local
[This is where I go to see what Canadians are up to, sometimes I even buy things from the businesses listed there.]

Environment Canada Weather
[This is the site I visit every morning, and before every road trip during the winter]

One of the things I found in the upright freezer, during the big defrost project, was four small tubs of whole plums. These plums are interesting, because I marked the year on the tubs when I packaged and froze them, in 2001.

These well wrapped plums had remained totally frozen at a very low temperature, for the last 7 1/2 years.

Caution: I would not recommend using food that has been stored longer than government recommendations for safe food storage (Canadian Food Inspection Agency Fact Sheet - Safe Food Storage) and food safety (Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education. I am proceeding with my geriatric food experiments at my own risk. Don't try this at home folks.

Clearly, these plums would need special care if they were to be turned into something mouthwatering.

After searching the Internet for recipes, I found several using fresh plums for tangy plum sauce.

After altering the recipes somewhat to suit myself, I began the process of turning 7 1/2 year old plums into a delicious plum sauce.

First I simmered the plums for about an hour. Then I strained the juice into a saucepan, removed the pits from the plums, used a hand blender to puree them and added the puree to the plum juice in the saucepan. I was then ready to follow my recipe for plum sauce.

To the plum mixture I added a half cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of honey, 1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, 1/4 cup of low sodium soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of vinegar. Since the mixture was not as thick as I would have liked, I made of slurry of 1/2 cup of cold plum juice and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, stirred to blend and added it to the plum mixture in the saucepan.

I simmered the whole thing for around 45 minutes. Attila and I agree, it is very good plum sauce! I will pour it into a mason jar and keep it in the refrigerator. It will be included in our menus over the next few months.

Magarac gave us these plums, picked from the trees in his backyard garden. Cheers Magarac!

Send a comment to Maggie at:
maggie@maggieturner.net

Top of Page

RECIPES :: Cast

Wordly Distractions

Ice sheet hanging down from the roof, obscuring the view of the sky.

Ice Awning: looking out the dining room window, unable to see the sky.

Airwaves
BBC Radio Scotland

By The Easy Chair
Dragonfly in Amber
by Diana Gabaldon
Yes, I have succumbed to the lure of the female adventurer and have started reading the second book in the series, having read Outlander. Something light to keep me company over the long winter.

Quote
"Waste not, want not."
My Mom, My Grandmother, My Aunts... people who love me. If they only knew how literally I have taken their advice!

Weather
Condition: Sunny
Temperature: -8.5°C
Pressure: 101.7 kPa falling
Visibility: 14.5 km
Humidity: 53 %
Wind Chill: -12
Dewpoint: -16.3°C
Wind: NNW 5 km/h

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal
Photography
Poetry
by Maggie Turner

Canadian Maggie Turner writes and publishes poetry, photography, and a personal journal online. Her work reflects the current way of life in Canada, embracing Canada's past, present, and future in a unique portrayal of everyday life. Maggie's voice is one of the many that actively depict the rich diversity of Canadian culture.

Photography: "a term which comes from the Greek words photos (light) and graphos (drawing). A photograph is made with a camera by exposing film to light in order to create a negative. The negative is then used in the darkroom to print a photograph (positive) onto light-sensitive paper.
Source: University of Arizona Glossary

Poetry: "a form of speech or writing that harmonizes the music of its language with its subject. To read a great poem is to bring out the perfect marriage of its sound and thought in a silent or voiced performance. At least from the time of Aristotle's Poetics, drama was conceived of as a species of poetry."
Source: Creative Studios

Journal: " "Though a journal may be many things - a treasury, a storehouse, a jewelry box, a laboratory, a drafting board, a collector's cabinet, a snapshot album, a history, a travelogue..., a letter to oneself - it has some definable characteristics. It is a record, an entry-book, kept regularly, though not necessarily daily.... Some (entries) will be nearly illegible, written in the dark in the middle of the night.... Not only is it a record for oneself, but of oneself. Every memorable journal, any successful journal, is honest. Nothing sham, phony, false...." (Dorothy Lambert from Ken Macrorie's book, Writing to be Read )
A journal is a way to keep track of your thoughts about what you read... as well as what you did on any given day."
Source: Journal Writing

A Blog is an online journal created by server side software, often hosted by a commercial interest.

"The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[4] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.[5][6][7] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_blogging

Plum Sauce

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal Photography Poetry by Maggie Turner

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal
Photography
Poetry
by Maggie Turner