A Farmer's Daughter Living Life Off The Farm: fruit butter

Its that time of year...pumpkin pumpkin everywhere. There are alot of ways to use pumpkin. Since I am a Fallaholic...yes that's right I am officially addicted to Fall. Its my favorite time of year. I thought I would show you one of my favorite pumpkin recipes. Its pumpkin butter. Have you ever had a fruit butter? Like apple butter is pretty common...and peach butter is out there.. Basically what you do is you take pumpkin and some ingredients and then cook it low and slow. It is awesome served on toast, bagels, scones or a hot buttered biscuit. I have a few ways I like to use it that I will post recipes for.. but first things first I got to show you how I make it. Because you cant make the other recipes...if you don't have the star ingredient.

Now I really like to make things homemade. Its fun for me. Generally my pumpkin butter is no exception. I love to get a pie pumpkin cut it and roast it and make homemade puree. I tried to do that this time. Except I bought an indestructible pumpkin. Nothing I did would cut it. I have never had this happen before. I used my sharpest knife...and then I sharpened it even further. I may or may not have went to my husbands tool box and got a screwdriver and hammer...ahem.. NOTHING WORKED! I then may or may not have had a little temper tantrum where I threw the pumpkin down outside on a concrete porch...and that pumpkin may or may not have BOUNCED...into the yard like nothing happened. Needless to say after gathering my Southern belle composure (haha) I proceeded with the recipe using a can of pumpkin. So check it out...this is the method before pumpkin madness...

Pumpkin Butter

1 can of pumpkin

1/2 c + 1 T. Brown Sugar

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t. cloves
2 T. Orange Juice
3 T. Apple Juice
2 t. vanilla
1/4 -1/2 c. pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast the pecans for 5-7 minutes. Put the pecans in your food processor and make a paste...adding a little pumpkin puree if you need to. I literally had to process it for almost 5 minutes with my little mini processor. Put all your ingredients in a sauce pan.. bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 35-45 minutes. Taste along the way and feel free to sweeten additionally or add more spices to your taste.This will keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks... or you can freeze it for 6 months

*you see those weird spaces up there... pretend it was on purpose and not just that I repel technology and blogger hates me...because no matter what I do...they wont go away!! Even my husband computer guru extrodianar tried and looked at me and said well you did it again...you broke technology.