Here is another great dessert from Everyday Food magazine, this one combining plums with a honey-orange sauce. Plums are generally in season May through October, and some varieties peak in the fall months, so there is plenty of time to enjoy this great recipe. If you leave off the ice cream or cream cheese topping, you can use this as a side to roast chicken or pork.

1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup orange juice
4 large purple or red plums, halved and pitted

Optional:
3 tbsp cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp milk
OR vanilla iced cream

Preheat oven to 400F

Place butter in 3-quart shallow baking dish and melt butter in preheating oven.

Add honey and orange juice to pan, stir until combined. Arrange plums, cut side down, in baking dish. Bake until tender and juicy, about 20-25 minutes, turning plums over during final 10 minutes of baking time and spooning juices over fruit. If needed, add additional orange juice or water to pan to prevent scorching.

To prepare cream cheese topping: stir cream cheese and milk together until blended. Spoon mixture over plums and drizzle with pan juices to serve OR serve plums with vanilla iced cream and drizzle with pan juices.

Another iced tea creation, this one combining fresh plums and fennel seed, from a website called epicurious.com. Fennel seed has an anise-like flavor, but sweeter and more like licorice root, sometimes called sweet cumin. Combined with tart plums, fennel seed gives this iced tea a strong, aromatic flavor. Use simple syrup to balance the tartness.  

4 orange pekoe tea bags
6 cups water
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp fennel seeds
4 plumes (about 1 pound), pitted and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
simple syrup, to taste (about 1 cup) see recipe below
plum slices, for garnish

Pour 4 cups boiling water over tea bags in a heat-resistant pitcher and steep 5-10 minutes or to desired strength. Set tea aside to cool.

In a saucepan, stir together fennel seeds, plums, and remaining 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5-7 minutes, until plums are soft.

Strain mixture, pressing hard on solids, and reserve liquid. Discard solids. Pour liquid through a fine strainer into tea. Stir in simple syrup to taste.

Chill tea 1-2 hours. Serve over ice and sliced plums. Add more simple syrup as needed for desired sweetness.

Simple Syrup:
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups water

To make Simple Syrup:
In a small saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring. Boil until sugar dissolves. Let syrup cool and chill, covered. Simple Syrup will keep for 2 weeks. Chill, covered, until ready to use. Makes 1 1/2 to 2 cups syrup.

Here is a great dessert recipe from the Everyday Food book. It is listed in the “Fall” chapter, but I think it works better for spring or summer, when the stone fruits are more in season. The combination I used was peaches, plums, and apricots. Because the apricots were small, I used 4 instead of 2.

Pick 3 of the following:
2 apricots
2 nectarines
2 peaches
2 plums
Plus:
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 to 3 tbsp sugar (depending on the sweetness of the fruit)
2 tbsp butter, cut into pieces
1 tbsp fresh lime juice (about 1 small)
Vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt, optional

Preheat oven to 400F

Prick the skins of the stone fruit. Halve each fruit and remove pits. Halve fruit again. Separate rosemary leaves and discard stems.

In a roasting pan, toss the fruit with rosemary, sugar, butter, and lime juice. Roast, tossing occasionally, until the fruit is fork-tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve warm over vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt, if desired, and drizzle the pan juices over the top.