Apple Butter

Fall around here means colorful, crunchy leaves, brilliant orange pumpkins, and lots of jars of apple butter! Mmmm... just take a whiff of all that warm, cinnamony spiciness...Some years, we've gone apple picking for the apples. Other years, we've bought "seconds" from a local orchard. This year, we got them on sale at the grocery store. This is Daddy Duck's favorite way of eating them: on saltines. (My favorite way is straight from the jar.)

Usually I make apple butter in the crockpot, but I was in a hurry yesterday, so I cooked it on the stove. I peeled, cored and sliced 15 pounds of apples, put them in a pot with 2lbs + 2 cups of brown sugar, about 1/4 cup of cinnamon and a sprinkling or two of ground cloves. I let them simmer (stirring occasionally) until the apples were really mushy (about 2-3 hours?). Then, I blended the rest with my stick blender & it was done. (I canned it too - it made about 8 1/2 pints.)