Pumpkin Butter

This is starting to look like a recipe blog, but I've been doing a lot of preserving this week! :) We took Jael up to Greenbluff (our local orchards) to pick a pumpkin and got home to discover that I couldn't make pumpkin butter like I'd planned because it wasn't a cooking pumpkin. But we love pumpkin butter and I still wanted to try making it since it is expensive, so I picked up some cooking pumpkins and tried canning a modified version of this recipe.

Pumpkin Butter in the Crockpot
4 cooking pumpkins/8 cups of pureed pumpkin
4 cups of sugar
2 t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1/2 cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1/4 t allspice
1/4 c lemon juice
Split pumpkins in half, seed them, and bake them until soft. Scoop out the meat and blend or mash until smooth. Combine all ingredients. Cook on low in a crockpot until thick and creamy. (I cooked mine for about 6 hours) Place in very hot pint or half-pint jars and seal. Makes about 4 pints. Enjoy all winter long!

We love this recipe and I ended up making a smaller, second batch for Jael with less spices and sweetened with agave nectar instead of sugar. She's been enjoying it, too!

Here is the finished product (with relish in the background):