How to make Pumpkin Butter

   How to not waste your pumpkins from halloween-

 Instead of carving our pumpkins and letting them rot on our door stoops, at Halloween we use nontoxic paint and decorate them that way.

 After Halloween we wash the paint off and make pumpkin butter. We can it, put it in our cupboards and give it away for christmas gifts. This is how we do it. 

You will need: 

Your whole pumpkins, 

Large pots,

A couple plastic bags for trash, 

A large bowl, 

disposable plastic tablecloth,

a thermometer,

a knife, 

a spoon, 

a fork,

strainers, 

jars, 

a blender or food processor, 

jar lifter, 

towels or cooling racks

Brown Sugar

pumpkin pie spice

salt

Vanilla (optional)

First take your Pumpkins and wash them. Place your tablecloth on the table and cut your pumpkins into pieces that will fit into your pots. Take a spoon to scrape the innerds (strings and seeds) off and save the seeds to bake or to dry and plant next year.

Do not peel them - cook them in the rind. Once your pots are filled with pumpkin, fill them with water and make sure the water covers your pumpkins or they wont cook. Boil the pumpkins until you can poke a fork through the rind easily. Add water if you need to as it cooks (about 30-40 minutes)

After they are cooked put them in strainers in the sink to let the excess water drain off and to Let them  cool off before you have to handle them.

Place one of the empty pots on the table and your spoon. Put the strainer in a bowl (it will still be dripping) and take it to the table.

Use the spoon to scrape the pulp off the rind. Put a strainer in one of the now empty pots and place the pulp into it to let it drain some more until you are ready for the blender.. When you are done bag up the rinds (ours goes to the compost heap) and throw it away. 

Now you are ready to put it in the blenderor food processer and chop it up . I do Liquify but the first time through it leaves big chunks. Dump out the blender into a bowl and continue till all the pumpkin is processed for the first time.

It will look chunky.  Now it goes back into the blender.                                                                                                                                 

Fill it to 2/3 full, add a pinch of salt (it wont taste right if you don't) 3 tablespoons of pumkin pie spice, 2 handfulls of brown sugar (light or dark does not matter-I use dark), 2 Tablespoons of vanilla, and Liquify that sucker..........you pour this into a pot because it has to be hot before you pour it into the jars. Heat the butter on the stove until the mixture is hot. (at least 145 degrees)

This is about the color it should be. This was done with light brown sugar, it will be a little darker if you use dark brown sugar. Be sure to taste it and make adjustments to the recipe after the first blender full. Is it too sweet? Reduce the sugar a bit. Not enough spice add some more...you will have several blenders full so when you mix it in the pot it will all work out.

Take a clean pot and place your jars in it and fill it with water. Put it on the stove to boil. The jars have to be hot when you pour the butter into them. I use the boiling water to sterilize the jars then for the hot water bath after..

Use a jar lifter to pull the jars out of the hot water. Now-pour the hot mixture into hot jars, make sure the rim is clean or it will not seal properly. (use new lids because it is not safe to reuse canning lids, you can reuse the jars and rings with no problem.)

You want to leave about an 3/4 inch from the top of room  if you fill them too full the jar will break in the water bath.

Be sure to put them in the hot water as you fill them so they do not cool down. Then get the water to a rolling boil.......

Yes I mean a rolling boil...one of the jars in this batch broke because it was too full.  After this batch was done, we just changed the water for the next batch.  We washed the jars after they cooled off.

Let them cool til morning...they will "POP" as they cool and seal.   Wash the jars in the morning if they are sticky, put the others away until you are ready to use them...if you are going to use the pumkin butter right away (we made this a few days before Thanksgiving and we did not can the jars we were going to use for that) you can store it in the fridge for up to a week safely.

Now you can enjoy this on bread, pancakes,  or even add a couple eggs, some milk and a tablespoon of flour, pour it into a pie shell bake it and you have pumpkin pie!



Hope you all enjoy this!