Plums and Honey

I've been having a disgustingly lazy day today. I've got a cold, a proper stinking one with sore throat, runny nose, aching sinuses, sneezing, not so much coughing (yet). I hardly ever get a cold, but they always seem to manifest when I have a fun day out planned - today I was supposed to be heading into central London to see my two year old god-daughter for the first time this year, and last time I was booked into a spa with my group of best buddies. Actually, I loathe spa days, and I was dreading the massage, but still. Anyway, enough whinging, the point is I've spent today making up for the missed day out by overdosing on blogs. I've recently become MASSIVELY addicted to blogs, mostly London based food ones, but also a smattering of book and gardening ones, and so I said to myself; "hey Jen, you have absolutely no writing ability or skill at html but you're a bit bored, you're too snotty to do anything else today and this could be a good opportunity to show the world your collection of Moomin mugs, let's do this!" So here we are, yay!

Anyway (I'm going to say that a lot, get used to it imaginary readers), my mum came for a flying visit from Suffolk yesterday and brought me some very ripe and tasty looking plums: a couple of bags of sweet ones, Victorias maybe, plus some damsons. I'm all out of lemons and couldn't be arsed to take my cold for a walk, so thought for a shot of vitamin C I'd stew some plums (the sweet ones, I'm saving the damsons to make cheese) and drink the hot juice with added honey. It was pretty good and my sore throat has disappeared for the moment so here's my recipe -

Plum Juice and Honey  Drink For Colds

Take a couple of bags of ripe plums. Rinse under cold water and throw out the mouldy and more dodgy looking squished one. Save some to go in your dinner (pork loin chops, hoisin and plums tonight), the rest go in a saucepan with a splash of Vermouth and a splash of water (so the liquid comes about a quarter of the way up the plums), a cinnamon stick, a pinch of ginger and quite a lot of sugar - I started with a two or three dessert spoons then added rather a lot more later as these were pretty tart plums. Cook on a low heat until they've basically disintigrated and pass through a sieve over a mug (this was quite messy as my brain isn't working and I couldn't think how to do it better, but into another bowl would probably have been a start), picking out stones as you go. Add honey to taste (despite all the sugar the plum juice was still tart), and guzzle. Eat the  rest of the cooled plums for pudding. Yum.