Freezing plums for winter

We continue to buy our fresh food at the farmers' market, which helps us to shop seasonally much of the time. However, both Eva and I prefer stone fruits in our winter porridge, so storing some for out-of-season eating was required.

Plum season is autumn, so as it came to a close we purchased about 3kg of plums to freeze for winter. That was 21 small plums and 13 large ones. 

 

They were diced and put into recycled take-away containers in portions each suitable for one serve of porridge. We filled seven containers, equivalent to 42 servings.

 

 

Through winter we have been thoroughly enjoying our plum porridge. The plum supply won't last us until summer fruits are in season (our freezer is not big enough for that!) but it has nicely tided us through the bulk of winter.

Initial Time: About two hours. This would probably have been considerably less if Tyson hadn't needed to make the PERFECT segment dividers for our plastic boxes (crafted from carefully measured pieces of plastic box lids)

  

Initial Cost: 3kg of plums cost us about $12 at end of season - we could have got them for less but chose to purchase organics. Keeping plums in the freezer costs us no extra, as the freezer would be running anyway. In fact, it may even save us money, as a full freezer reduces the amount of air that needs to be cooled (every time the door opens it needs to be re-cooled) and the thermal mass of the frozen plums assists with the overall cooling. 

  

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Making porridge with Eva helping takes no more than ten minutes in the morning. We don't do it every day, and I could do it in half the time without assistance, but it is a great kids activity in itself so why do it without her?

 

Impact: Lets be honest, our 3kg of plums are not changing the world by themselves. However, keeping them for winter is one more small act towards shopping seasonally, reducing our supermarket dependence and trying to swing our eating into more sustainable practices.

If we purchased preserved plums instead we would be supporting manufacturing that includes issues of food transport and storage (as discussed in my post on farmers' markets), packaging, electricity for plant operation and chemicals in preservatives as well as those used to clean the factory.

Having ready-chopped portions of fruit on hand also encourages me to bother with cooking porridge, which is a healthy way to do breakfast and also engages Eva in creating her own food.