Kenna Morton's Journal, 04 Nov 21

Sounds delicious 😋 

I love pumpkin butter.  

When I made the pie, I punched a few holes with a fork, then put the whole pumpkins in the microwave to cook. Let it cool for a while, them it's really easy to cut the squash in two and scoop out the flesh. 

I thought about doing that. Although this recipe is called “pumpkin butter”, the author said that during this Autumn season there were other types of squash (which is what pumpkin is) that had better taste profiles? Who knew. But, as I almost always do, the first time I make a limited amount of the item, made just as the author wrote the recipe— then tweak the hell out of it after that. The other thing I learned from cooking shows is that many canned pumpkin brands contain both pumpkin and a mixture of other “squashes”. I did the verification on that, and he was right. Trader Joe’s is my favorite. And I am going to try canned pumpkin in the recipe for the winter and see if it works. I have quite a few apple butter lovers in my world. I am also going to try your bake and scrape meathod as well. Thanks for the comment 

Kenna, I do the microwave thing too, so much easier. You pumpkin/apple butter sounds fabulous, I'm envious of your lucky friends. 🍁 

The main advantage of microwave vs boiling beyond convenience is that all the nutrients stay in. 

wow!! you made the pumpkin apple butter and canned it?! geez! You're amazing 😃 😊  

I just love trying new things and I like to cook. I have many wonderful friends who can no longer cook well but can garden and have incredible fruit trees so they share a good portion of their harvest with me and I return it to them in things I make.. I freezer can, I don’t really heat can. I have seen several people die of botulism from home canning in my medical career, so was never really confident enough to try it. 

Kenna, do you have an instant pot? I cook spaghetti squash in mine, was thinking about cooking the acorn squash this weekend. You can also can with some of the newer models. It’s a great tool. I’ll bet you could steam the pumpkins and there are some great websites out there.  

You don’t need to peel the apples because the peel completely breaks down with the cooking and once you blend it all up you never know it was there. Completely smooth final product. Tomorrow is going to make sweet potato biscuits to serve with my pumpkin (squash) apple butter.  

Katsolo— I have debated getting one for a while but I just don’t think I need one. If I do, I have a couple friends who have them so I can always borrow one.