Pumpkin Butter

I hibernated for the weekend.  On Saturday, I think I slept 16 hours and I was not even sick.  I consciously chose not to work out, not to drive to LA to go to the furniture sale, not to go crazy in the kitchen, and just rest.  If you know me well, you know that this is an incredibly hard task to do but after this weekend, I feel like I am a normal person again!  It feels great. 

This is totally on a side note.  When I was not sleeping, I was watching tv with Gracie.  Does your dog watch tv?  My dog does and she watches the tv so intensely I think her eyes are gonna go bad so I have to tell her to step away from the tv.  She loves football, anything with with an ocean scene (especially when the water comes up against the shore), and any show that has animals in it and it doesn't even have to be a real animal... it could be stuffed animal, animal statue or animal cartoon and she goes BA-NA-NAS!  Sometimes when I am cooking in the kitchen, I leave the tv on for her so she can keep herself entertained.  I almost feel like a bad parent for not giving her my full attention at times but she is my dog and not an actual child.  Thank goodness.        

Okay.... enough rambling.  Now on to the recipe, I am sharing a recipe I did last week with my fresh pumpkin puree.  This reminds me of the Trader Joe's pumpkin butter and you could just buy it at the store but it is so easy to make at home so that is what I did.  I should also mention that I reduced the amount of sugar a tad. This is perfect to spread on toast in the morning and after you make this, your kitchen will smell like you lit a pumpkin spice candle in it for hours.  It smells warm, cozy and exactly like fall.  You can multiply this recipe to make more pumpkin butter to pass out to friends and family.  This was made for 2 people so I only wanted to make a pint. 

Recipe

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 1 pint

Ingredients

15 ounces fresh pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin

1/3 c plus 1 tbs apple juice

1/2 c brown sugar sugar

1/2 tbs ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Directions

Put everything in a pot except the fresh lemon juice.  Bring to a boil and simmer on low for 30 minutes or 'til the mixture thickens. Stir frequently.  Add fresh lemon juice at the end and adjust more if needed.  Transfer the mixture into sterile containers and store in fridge. 

The pumpkin butter should be thick like this.  Also, I sterilized my mason jar to help the pumpkin butter last as long as possible.  I just put my clean mason jar and lid in the oven at 250 degrees F for 15 minutes.  I cooled the jar before putting the pumpkin butter in it.