Green Door Hospitality is very excited to be joining several other bloggers for the monthly Collectively Creative! This month’s theme is ‘Thankful’! Please make sure to also check out the bottom of this post for links to other exciting blogs covering this topic!
We are so very thankful for our small group of friends attending our ‘Thankful with Friends’ dinner party and wanted to provide them a little token of our friendship. Homemade and Edible gifts are always my favorite. They don’t strain the budget, but most importantly they mean so much more! Due to the dietary restrictions of our guests, the gift needed to be both vegan and gluten-free in order to accommodate everyone. I decided to turn to Changing My Destiny who has just come out with a Crockpot Fruit Butter eBook! She has a wonderful recipe for Spiced Pumpkin Butter that fit my (and my guests) needs perfectly!
Spiced Crockpot Pumpkin Butter — from Changing My Destiny
Remove the rind of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds. Chop the meat of the pumpkin into 1 inch chunks.
Toss the sugar and ground spices with the chopped pumpkin.
Add the pumpkin mixture to the Crockpot. Add the apple juice and cinnamon sticks. Set the Crockpot on low and close the lid.
Let the pumpkin cook overnight, or for 8 hours. When soft enough, remove the cinnamon sticks, and use an immersion blender to mash the pumpkin into a puree. Add the 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and stir to combine.
Change the Crockpot temperature to high and remove the lid. Le the mixture cook down until very thick, there should be no visible liquid left. Cook on high for about 3 hours, though this step can vary per batch. It may take more or less than 3 hours.
Once done, let it cool. Depending on your preference you may want to blend it for smoother consistency.
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While deciding what gift to give our guests, I was also trying to decide on what to use as place cards. I think place cards are a really fun element for a dinner party. This is especially true when not all of your guests know each other very well. It promotes mingling, conversation, and an overall feeling of comfort. We’ll talk more about developing a seating chart in a later post. In the meantime, I was trying to decide on a gift and trying to decide on a place card that was unique and would fit the mood of the table. And suddenly, it hit me. I could kill two birds with one stone! With a permanent market and some fabric squares from Hobby Lobby, the gifts are now also the place cards!!
And make sure to check out these fantastic other blog posts that are part of Collectively Creative – The Thankful Edition! Collectively Creative is put together by Kelly over at Cobwebs, Cupcakes, and Crayons.
What a great and lovely idea. I LOVE pumpkin butter.
Cynthia
Thanks, I do too and hopefully it’ll be the perfect treat for our guests 🙂
Great post! I’ve seen a lot of crock pot fruit butters floating around the internet right now and I’m so intrigued yet nervous to try one. I guess it surprises me that the “butter” gets thick enough. Yours looks great though and I love that you switched it up to do pumpkin instead of apple. 🙂
Thanks!! Actually my original plan was to do apple since I have a blogger friend that does a really great brandy apple butter (I’ll be posting the link in a post I’m doing tomorrow) — however, one of my guests does not like any kind of cooked apple. So, pumpkin it is! And it really did thicken up nicely!! 🙂
What a lovely post and project! I always get so many ideas from you! 🙂
Thanks so much! I love being able to give little edible gifts to our guests 🙂
Sounds excellent! 🙂
I don’t have a Crock Pot myself, but I can’t wait to try it.
I really think you’ll like it! And you can always come over and we can have a crockpot food making party for the two of us 🙂
“Thankful with Friends” Dinner party…I LOVE this! And what a sweet touch to make a gift for each of your guests…and to use them as place cards. I’m a big lover of place cards as well…they add that little extra something. Thank you so much for being a part of The Thankful Edition!
Thank you for including me!! 🙂
We’re really excited for our first ‘Thankful with Friends’ dinner party and already looking forward to it becoming a yearly tradition!
Um, yum!!!! I love apple butter so I am pretty sure I would love this too. They look great!
Thanks!! Yeah, it tastes really good — it is like nice, thick pumpkin pie in a jar! 🙂
You had me at “crockpot.” 🙂 Anything that I can make in a slow cooker is perfect and this looks like it might be perfect on cornbread or rolls or on a spoon… Thanks for sharing it!
Hehe– on a spoon is already good, I can tell ya! 🙂 It is also good in a Pumpkin French Toast Bake that I’ll be sharing the recipe for later this week 🙂
Pumpkin French Toast Bake? Sounds sinfully good! I’ll be watching for that one!
Oh man! I love making little gifts for guests and pumpkin butter sounds so good. Something I’d love to give as well as receive! Now I just need to go buy a crockpot…
The pumpkin butter is really tasty 🙂 And the crockpot would be worth the investment… I use mine quite a bit!
Oh my, this recipe sounds awesome. And I think I could actually do this one! I’m looking forward to the brandy apple butter! Love the idea of turning them into placecards too!
Thanks!! They were really fun to make! 🙂
I love edible, homemade gifts too…there’s something so comforting and loving about them! That pumpkin butter looks delicious, and I love that you do it in the crockpot, so easy! Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving 🙂
It really was super easy! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving as well! 🙂
What a great idea, if I have extra time, I will be making these !!
It’s very good! I really think you and your guests will like it! 🙂
I made some pumpkin butter earlier this fall, but it has mysteriously disappeared 🙂 I’ll have to try this one next!
I think you’ll enjoy it! 🙂
What a beautiful and creative idea!
Thanks so much Judy! 🙂
This is a very unique, creative, practical and doable hostess gift idea. I love it. I have pinned it on my Pinterest board for canning and preserves. ~Thea
Great to hear! Thanks Thea! Doing in the crockpot made it very easy and the fact that it is a canned item means that they are all done and just waiting for my guests (which means less stress the day of!!!) 🙂
Quite brilliant! Thank you!
🙂
Quite brilliant! Thank you!
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