The Garden Provides: Pumpkin Butter

Fall and winter are my favorite times of year when it comes to food. Not only are the holidays based around food but I will never get sick of winter squash. Whether it’s butternut, spaghetti, kabocha, or delicata, I can eat squash and pumpkins any day.

After going on one of my favorite hikes in the Bay Area, just off of Tennessee Valley Road, I stopped by a local farm stand called Cecelia’s Gardens. This is a small stand open Thursday-Sunday in Marin County. The produce is beautiful; purple and orange cauliflower, giant brussel sprouts, canned everything, chicken and duck eggs, and an assortment of trail mixes. What I liked most about this stand is that the prices are really low for organic produce, especially compared to a farmer’s market in the city.

The young man who was working at the stand asked me if I needed help with anything and offered his homemade pumpkin butter for me to try. He put a dab on my finger and I was sold. It tasted like a pureed pumpkin pie in a jar! It was so sweet and delicious I had to buy a jar which was $8 but well worth it. I wanted to make sure I got my jar before they went out of season.

This was the first time I bought pumpkin butter so I wasn’t exactly sure what to eat it with. Eating it straight out of the jar seemed a little wrong to me although I did consider it. After some quick research online, I decided to add it into my breakfast. Here is a recipe for what I came up with:

Yogurt with Banana and Pumpkin Butter

1 cup of low fat plain yogurt

1/4 cup of pumpkin butter

1 banana sliced

8 almonds diced up

1 table spoon of flax seeds

1 table spoon of chia seeds

A dash of cinnamon

The recipe is simple. The only work you will have to do is cut up the almonds and banana.

Then mix everything together and enjoy!