Two Things to Make to Bring Fall To Your Kitchen
I've done it! I've officially created two fall things in the kitchen that I never thought I was capable of successfully completing.
What are these things you might ask? The first, is making apple butter. The second, is cooking a pumpkin to use for pie and pumpkin butter. Annnddd it worked! Yay!
The first thing I tried was making apple butter. I used a recipe for making it in the Crock-pot, and gosh, was it easy! The recipe I used came from Dessert for Two and was very simple to put together (link to the page at end of this post). I chose to use a mixture of sweet and tart apples in order to get a more balanced flavor.
I was amazed that the apples cooked down so much that all I had to do was stir them together to change them from chunks of apples into apple butter! It was so neat! I suppose you could blend it if you wanted to, but it's definitely not necessary unless you want a very thin and smooth texture. Personally, I like the slightly more chunky texture a lot. Also, the flavors of the spices didn't come out as strongly as I'd hoped, so next time I make it, I plan to add the spices a little more heavily. (I also used nutmeg instead of allspice and cloves, but I think next time, I'll add the cloves back in)
Guys, even with the minor tweaking, this recipe was GOOD. And one more great thing about it? You don't have to can it unless you want to!
Now for the pumpkin!
The other night, we carved pumpkins (ie. I watched while my husband carved). Mostly the carving was a success, but we had one pumpkin that was a disaster. Instead of tossing it, K wanted to save it and figure out how to cook it to use for pie or something (which neither of us had ever done).
I'm always game for trying new things – especially in the kitchen, so I pulled out my phone, and googled how to cook a pumpkin in the crockpot.
Thankfully, K had already scooped out the insides and done all the messy work, so all I had to do was chunk it up into pieces that would fit in our crock-pot. I used the directions provided by Bless This Mess Please, and voila! We have cooked pumpkin, ready to use in a pie, pumpkin butter or anything else that looks good (you can find the link to her directions at the end of this page).
So, the point of all of this is that, if you want your kitchen to smell and taste like fall and the holiday season, you need to do two thing: make Crockpot Apple Butter, and cook a pumpkin to use in seasonal recipes! I'd always built both of these things up in my head as being so difficult, messy and not worth the hassle, but I was WRONG. They're easy, straightforward and the taste of fresh apple butter or pumpkin is hard to beat. Do yourself a favor and give it a try! I doubt that you'll be disappointed.
Here are the links to the blog posts/recipes I used for guidance!
-https://www.blessthismessplease.com/best-easiest-way-cook-pumpkin/
-https://www.dessertfortwo.com/slow-cooker-apple-butter/