Eat It With Your Face

Hi, my name is Dina, and I’ve been a Pinterest addict for… oh, I don’t know, a while now.

Pinterest is a link-sharing site in which users “pin” images (with attached links) on to different “boards”, or groups of images/links. This can be used for many things - home decor decisions, showcasing designs you like, showing off interesting pictures you’ve found… but by and large, the main use of Pinterest seems to be for stay-at-home mothers sharing links to recipes, craft projects and homeschooling ideas and for other women to plan their weddings. (Which has made me feel compelled to be a one-woman force to weird Pinterest. You all should join me.)

The main reason I joined Pinterest was to create a repository of interesting recipes to try, and it has succeeded in that arena. The other day, my cousin Bri posted a link to a recipe for pumpkin butter. Immediately, my mind went to the many bags of pureed pumpkin sitting in my freezer. I looked over the ingredient list, and lo, I had all the ingredients except for the lemon. Score!

Yesterday afternoon, after an ill-fated but fun day trip to the mountains, we stopped off at the market to buy a lemon. Then I made the questionable decision to cook pumpkin butter standing on a rolled ankle. (I’m feeling it today, let’s just say.)

One thing the recipe doesn’t warn you about is the fact that when your pumpkin gets boiling, it turns into molten pumpkin gloop that will try to fly out of the pot and hit you in the face, which is not exactly a nice sensation. It is also not great for keeping your stovetop clean. However, you’re supposed to cook fruit butters uncovered to allow the water to evaporate off. I tried a method that I had read on another recipe for apple butter - I rested the lid on two wooden skewers. This allowed the steam to escape but kept the splatters (mostly) contained.

Once the pumpkin butter was cooked down, I cooled it off in a cold water bath (I put it in a smaller metal bowl that I floated in a larger Pyrex bowl full of cold water). Once it was lukewarm, I spooned it into a clean spaghetti sauce jar (don’t judge!) and put it in the fridge. (Do note that pumpkin butter needs to be refrigerated - you can’t can it to keep it on the shelf because of the risk of botulism, which is bad.)

After I had put the pumpkin butter in its jar and put it in the fridge, I realized I had forgotten to even add the lemon juice. D’oh! It still tastes wonderful without it, though. Kind of like pumpkin pie without the pie and with the added zing of the apple juice. I think next time I’d make it with dark treacle or molasses - really get that flavor in there!

What can you do with pumpkin butter? Well, it tastes *just fine* eaten off the spoon. ;) You can mix it into yogurt, cottage cheese or ice cream or spread it on bread or toast. You can also use it to replace some of the oil in baking recipes (like The Cook’s Thesaurus suggests with apple butter).

Or eat it off the spoon. I won’t stop you.