A happy day spent cooking

It was Australia Day public holiday on Monday, and what with my new light kitchen I got all motivated and actually did some work in there, now that's dangerous, don't want to set a precedence and have John think he's going to get it all the time, it will wear off, I assure you. Robyn bought in three cartons of different varieties of plums, about 3 or 4 kilograms in each. Lisa took one carton home to make plum jam in her Thermomix, mmmh I think I will have to get one of those, took less than 30 minutes to make jam. Some of the girls took some of the plums leaving one and a half cartons left, one to Joanne for the kids to eat and I took the other one home. And this is what I did with them, preserved some 4 large jars, chutney about 6 jars and sauce 5 bottles. I kept aside 8 plums to make a delicious plum upside down cake for dessert, that went down a treat with ice cream and custard.

Washed fruit, I am sure Robyn doesn't use chemicals in her garden, but to wash of dust etc.Fruit chopped up and pips taken out, and weighed. I have been married 43 years and never had scales, mostly worked in cups, very haphazard but I am not great cook.As this mess will tell, I managed to flick brown sugar all over the place, can you see it on the bench its on those jars with the red lids too. Oh well I was having fun!!And yum see that cake, well not quite cooked in the centre, but still tasted amazing. Anyone wanting the recipe, let me know and I will print it here.Prior to moving to Australia from New Zealand 27 years (yikes is it that long) we always bought fruit and vegetables direct from the farms sometimes you got them even cheaper if you picked them yourself, I would cook them up for preserves or freeze making considerable savings. I have the desire to go back to doing that. I enjoy cooking, but I hate cleaning up afterwards. I am getting domesticated at last but it is very creative. I also made a Banana cake with some over ripe bananas. Well my sisters what do you think of that???