Using what you've got for rhubarb-pumpkin butter

     We made a fruit butter today.  It is probably the only one in the world of its type because we used rhubarb, pumpkin, shredded zucchini, and oranges in the mix.  The backstory follows:
Rhubarb grows very well here on the cool northern coast of California.  We have two huge plants of it (see a previous blog note on rhubarb).  We are planning to make some rhubarb juice drink, but today, we used 33 large stalks of rhubarb, 4 cups of grated zucchini which we had frozen from last years crop, 12 cups of cooked frozen pumpkin from last years pumpkin harvest, and three whole oranges quartered.  Usually we make apple butter or pear apple butter in the fall each year, but wanted to try something new, and clear out our freezer for the new veggies we are freezing.
     Here is a picture of the whole mass when we were just starting. (Click to enlarge).

The next photo shows the process of putting the lightly cooked fruits and veggies through a mill to get rid of seeds and the stringy pulp from the rhubarb.

Next comes the slow cooking of the mix with the addition of 3 1/2 cups of sugar, 8 t cinnamon, and 4 crushed pods of cardamom seeds.

After cooking this down for many hours, we prepared to hot bath can the rhubarb-pumpkin butter in pint jars.  The final pictures show the process of putting the butter in the jars, then canning in boiling water for ten minutes, and then taking the jars out of the water to let them cool            and seal.  The taste is quite unusual.  You can taste the pumpkin in the mix, and the acidity of the rhubarb, as well as the cinnamon flavor.  Yum!