When your friend’s mom asks us to help her with the consumption of the delicious fruits from the trees in her garden, how can you refuse? We sure didn’t, and last night, we transported these pluots [along with some pears] to the kitchen in cardboard boxes and paper bags.
Once in the kitchen, I went to work, sorting and washing all the fruit.

The ones pictured above were the ones that weren’t overly ripe and squashed to smithereens. If you didn’t know already, a pluot is a hybrid fruit – a cross of a plum and apricot with more plum-like tendencies. Its counterpart, the aprium, is more of an apricot. There are multiple colors because our friend’s mom’s tree grows three of the over 20 varieties of pluots.
For the overly ripe and NOT squashed pluots, I’m turning them into a pluot puree. They will be mixed with some bubbly for a pluot fizz, which I have so lovingly deemed “a Pellini,” similar to Bellini.
Before throwing them in for steaming, I slit an “x” on the bottom of each pluot.

I don’t have a steam rack set-up for any of the pots/pans just yet, so into the rice cooker they went! I used the steaming rack that came with the rice cooker instead.

The skins came off quite easily! I’m going to have to pit them tonight because by the time my fruit sorting operation was done, it was already past my bedtime. Once pitted, they’ll go into the food processor and one step closer to becoming pureed.
That’s a lot of pluots for two people, so we are inviting our friends over to help eat/drink them. I’m going to try making pluot ice cream or sorbet. I’m not sure what other recipes to try, but we need to finish these pluots before they go bad!