Experiments in Homemaking: Apple Vs. Pumpkin

Every fall there's kind of a friendly competition between apples and pumpkins. Some people swear by the fresh baked apple goodies and others are all about the pumpkin spice. My last two blogs were about apples. Now I have some pumpkin recipes I would like to share with you.

I have made a few things before that took pumpkin. Mostly pumpkin pie mix but some plain pumpkin. I always just bought canned pumpkin but this year we had several pumpkins from the CSA and I wanted to try to actually cook them and not just decorate with them like I have in times past. So once again, Pinterest came to my rescue!

Look at these beauties!!

There are multiple different methods for cooking pumpkins but the one I found that looked easy was the following: Simply wash the pumpkins, cut them in half, scoop out the insides and put them in the crockpot on high for 2-3 hrs until a fork will pierce through the rind.

Now what to do with this yummy pumpkin ...

I had two recipes I wanted to try. One for pumpkin bread and one for pumpkin butter.

First up, the butter!
Pumpkin, honey, apple juice, vanilla, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice and salt

Cook in the crockpot on low for 6 hrs.

Yes, that is a different crockpot than in the other picture! My hubby found a brand new crockpot at the thrift store for $10 so now I have two!!

The original blog suggested almond butter, pumpkin butter sandwiches so I decided to try it. We have several jars of almond butter than need used up because we accidentally bought way far ahead on almond butter! It's really good!