Fall is by far, my favorite season. For me, autumn is never complete unless I’ve visited an apple orchard and carved a pumpkin. My annual orchard adventure inspired me to make some spicy slow-cooked apple butter, made easy by letting most of the cooking happen overnight, in my Crock Pot. And my Daytime Tri-Cities segment was close enough to Halloween to include some carving hacks I’ve picked up over the years.

A few tips on the apple butter. Many varieties of apples are great for apple butter, including Fuji, Cortland, Braeburn, Idared, and Wolf River to name a few. For ease of availability and low cost, I went with Golden Delicious, mixing in a few Honeycrisp. Some people include the peels and even the cores and process the result through a food mill later. I kept it simple and used my hand-cranked apple peeler/corer/slicer to save time.

Easy Apple Butter, Slow-Cooker Style

My 20 cups of mostly Golden Delicious apples yielded 5+ cups of apple butter. Your yield will be based on the consistency of your apples.

Peel, core and slice

6 1/2 pounds of apples

Place prepared apples into 5 quart slow-cooker. In a small bowl, combine together:

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon each of ground cloves, ginger, and allspice

1/3 cup of cinnamon red hots (optional and a shout out to my mom who always put these candies in her apple butter)

Pour the sugar/spice mixture over the apples and stir together. Put on the lid and turn on low.

Go to bed. Or at least wait 8 hours. At which point your entire house will smell like the best fall candle ever. Get out your immersion blender and puree the cooked apples until smooth. Replace the lid, but slightly off so steam can escape. If you’re going to be around, turn up to high and stir occasionally, until the mixture reaches the thickness you want. I cooked mine an additional 4 hours.

The variety of apple will change how long the entire cooking process takes, with apples that are more meaty taking less time than more watery ones. Once you’re happy with the thickness, you can jar some in half-pint, pint, or quart jars, using a water bath if you want to be super safe. (smaller jars 5 minutes, quarts for 10.) (Hot jars and lids will seal without a water bath, but that’s up to you!) These make the perfect gifts for friends and family at Christmas!

Pumpkin Carving Hacks

Try cutting out the bottom instead of the top to clean out your pumpkin for a change. A candle will sit well that way and sometimes your design benefits from it. I chose the traditional way for my butterfly, as it was easier for me to handle my complicated design.

Use a toothpick or bamboo skewer to hold fragile parts in place, or to attach cut pieces of pumpkin or other decorative touches to the outside.

Get a carving kit with their simple tools. They save you so much time! I basically use the one that looks like a jigsaw blade, the sharp poker for translating patterns, and the scraper, along with an Exacto knife. I occasionally use some shaping tools made for clay. For scraping you can also use an ice cream scoop and a sharp toothpick for marking out patterns.

Let the printer be your friend. I will print out to size what I want, whether it’s a logo, a phrase, or a butterfly, especially if it’s more complicated and spacing is important. It’s easier to get the spacing right in Word than to free-style on a pumpkin only to realize too late you’re off. I tape my pattern onto the pumpkin (takes some shifting and creasing, because a flat piece of paper has to fit on a curved, irregular surface.) Then I poke little holes to create an outline of my design into the pumpkin. I remove the paper and the pattern is transferred. I keep an extra copy of my design handy so I can refer to it when carving, so the design is more clear to me.

For simple cutouts, the “jigsaw blade” tool works like a charm. One super simple method is to use a drill for holes, using various-sized bits and hole-saws. Just make sure you keep the speed down low, so the resulting hole is round and not jagged. For complicated cut outs, I use an Exacto knife first, cutting shallowly into the hole area at an angle so I can remove the outer skin, making the delicate carving more accurate. There’s no do-overs in pumpkin carving, just work arounds.

Thin the inside and remove the outer skin for a glow-through effect. The thinner, the more glow. But don’t go too far. No do-overs, remember?

To outline an area, cut out v-shaped groves with your Exacto knife. I also cut straight down at my outline if I’m going to remove the outer skin for the glow effect, then cut at an angle to the line, so I preserve my outline, like a back stop. Keeps it looking sharp and you don’t have to worry about messing up as much.

To help your designs last, keep the pumpkin refrigerated when not on display. Use a bleach disinfectant on the cut portion to prevent mold. Spray with non-stick spray and wipe off to slow cut edges from drying out early and to give your pumpkin a nice sheen. Craft pumpkins never rot, and though the effect isn’t exactly the same, it’s a great way to enjoy your hard work for years to come.

Use LED lights instead of candles. It’s safer, there are so many cool effects from strobes to color changing to warm flickers, and you won’t have soot building up inside, or heat cooking it. The LED pillar candles work well and there are many smaller lights on sale at Halloween. Even a strand of plug in lights can fit inside a pumpkin. The more light, the more pop.

Be creative and just have fun! Make a mistake cutting? It’s not a mistake, just a variation. A quick glance through Google or Pinterest gives you tons of ideas and don’t hesitate to put your spin on it. That’s where my Pumpkin-eating-pumpkin came from, and when I saw a new light I’d just found would fit perfectly inside the baby pumpkin, the design was even better.