Mornings of Pumpkin Butter and Flooding Rains

This morning, I thought I would go for a walk.  But the flooding rains came, so I decided to stay put.  I was able to make some progress on my apocalyptic novel, and I wrote a poem.  If I had only done that, it would have been enough.  My novel writing this week has not been at the same frantic pace as week #1, and I have felt stagnant when it came to poems.  I was happy to get some words on paper.

But the fact that I wasn't going to walk made me think about baking.

I wanted to bake pumpkin bread to make the house smell good, but my bread pans are still packed away out in the cottage.  Instead, I decided to make pumpkin butter.

It's an easy recipe, and a spread for your toast that has lots of vitamin A.  Here's the recipe:

1 can of pumpkin
2/3 c. of sugar
1/2 c. of water
1 tsp. cinnamon
other favorite autumn spices:  nutmeg, cloves, allspice, ginger
1 T lemon juice
1 T lemon zest

If you only had the first 4 ingredients, the recipe would still work.  Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil, stir/whisk, and let simmer for 20 minutes, stirring/whisking occasionally.

This experiment didn't make the house smell delicious, the way that pumpkin bread would have done.  But it made me happy to have something simmering on the stove.

And it made me happy to have a special treat for breakfast--breakfast today and later breakfast too.