God Damn It: Pumpkin Butter

-Sigh.-

So today - this day that I am writing this and not the day this post is going up - is one of those days. One of those days where a string of unfortunate events all seem to connect and painfully pull each other along like a anal beads out of a virgin butthole. Let us go over the last few hours:

1. Decide to make pumpkin butter.

2. Hack open pumpkin and begin processing it. Somehow completely forget that I am totally allergic to raw pumpkin flesh. Hands, understandably, begin to swell and burn. The skin on my palms begins to peel away as if I have been scourged with leprosy.

3. Wash hands thoroughly with plenty of soap and vinegar - which stings like a bitch when you don't have a lot of goddamn skin - to get the proteins and amino acids that are doing this to me off.

4. Now wearing latex gloves, I rub the pumpkin flesh with olive oil. Pumpkin roasts in the oven. Mini-migraine now sets in. Rest for a while.

5. Dog finds errants pumpkin seed. The dog, apparently, is not keen on pumpkins either and promptly throws it up along with the rest of his stomach contents onto the bathroom rug.

6. The bathroom rug was washed last night.

7. Throw rug in washer. Frickin'. Hell.

8. Juice from pumpkin sizzles off the baking sheet and smokes on the bottom of the oven.

9. Smoke alarm goes off.

10. Panic due to alarm and smell of smoke. Ever since my old apartment burned down I find myself petrified by the black acrid clouds of smoke. Crippling panic sets in as I run around the house screaming at everything.

11. My husband, Brian, takes care of smoke alarm. I take care of pumpkins. All is now well.

12. I realize that I have forgotten to get apple cider for the pumpkin butter.

13. Mother. Fucker.

14. Back from the store I make the pumpkin butter mash in the food processor. Pop it in a pot to cook.

15. The mash is thick and when it bubbles it send searing hot pumpkin lava spewing across the kitchen. A small eruption catches the underside of my wrist.

16. I swear a lot and loudly. I place my wrist under some water and then go back to work after the pain subsides.

17. Another eruption. Why wouldn't it explode all over my new white hoodie from J. Crew?

18. Brian takes over as I put on an apron. Afterwards, I take back the stirring duties.

-Brian puts up with my mood like a saint.-

19. Eruption three. My other hand. This one I feel the molten sugar and pumpkin mash burrow deep into my flesh and eat away at my favorite layers of skin and the nerves that scream underneath.

20. Fuck this shit.

21. My first reaction is to kick the cupboard door. Why not, right?

22. Mid-kick I panic, "Oh shit, what if I break it?"

23. I have learned the cupboard is made of incredibly sturdier stuff than my foot.

24. Fuck balls, I have seriously hurt my foot.

25. Brian finishes the stirring. I go to bed to ice my now rapidly swelling foot and take some Ibuprofen for it. My headache is much worse and feels like I hit the cupboard with it instead. Awesome.

26. Brian informs me there are no lids for the jars now filled with pumpkin butter.

27. *incoherent rage*

28. Pumpkin butter tastes amazing. Sweet and musky with a round and full flavor from the maple syrup and honey. Spices sing eloquently in a lilting little ginger-cinnamon sonata. I am pleased.

29. I am seriously all messed up with burns, a headache, and a foot wrapped up with ice. It has swelled so much that it looks like a giant yam.

30. Crawl in bed with my Kindle. Block outside world out.

31. Cat has thrown up in the bed and I sit right in it.

32. Sigh and resign myself to my lot. Change clothes and bedding. Eat pumpkin butter with spoon.

33. One day before this post goes up I learn that the photos never processed properly from the pumpkin butter. In fact, they completely imploded on themselves like dying stars. Grargh. It looks orange and smooth, you know, like pumpkin butter. I also spent about three days in a splint as the shock from kicking the cabinet bruised all the tendons on the underside of my foot. So there's that, too.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. Hope you survive it.

Pumpkin Butter
Makes 4 cups worth

4 cups pureed pumpkin flesh
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
a good blob of honey
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup apple cider
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Place all the ingredients in a large pot over medium heat. Cook continuously for 10 minutes (stopping causes the bubbling, which can lead to pumpkin lava eruptions and blinding pain). Place into sterile jars. Store in the fridge and eat within 3 weeks.