Recipe: Stewed plums with orange and cinnamon

Stewed plums with orange and cinnamon

I used to love it as a kid when my mum made stewed plums, served with lashings of Bird's custard... delish. But I've never made them myself so when I spotted two punnets of yellow-stickered plums (£1 reduced to 45p) I thought it was time to give stewed plums a whirl myself.

Not sure how my mum used to make them (if you're reading this mum then feel free to leave a comment at the end of the blog with your recipe!) but here's how I made mine, adapted from a Tesco recipe at http://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/stewed-plums.html:

1) De-stone and quarter the plums (I ended up with about 750g of plums).
2) Juice two oranges and add to 400ml of water in a pan.
3) Heat the orange juice and water with 100g of cinnamon sugar. (I had sugar which already had cinnamon in it but you could use normal sugar with a sprinkling of cinnamon or, even better, a cinnamon stick).
4) Slowly heat until boiling, stirring occasionally, and then add the plums and simmer for 15 minutes.
5) Delicious served hot or cold!

When I talk about my blog and yellow stickered habits, people often ask how we manage to use up the fresh fruit and veg we buy before it goes off.

I bought these plums a few days ago and they certainly needed using today - but by stewing them they'll now keep for several days more in the fridge and we will be tucking into them for breakfast with a dollop of yoghurt, or as a dessert with ice-cream or custard.

The oranges I used I actually bought for 3p each a few weeks ago - and they were still perfectly fine to use! Just because the date says they're past their best doesn't mean you can't still use them!