Apple Butter...Yummy!

     This past weekend my family attended a friend's wedding in Northwest Arkansas.  Part of their decor was a bucket of apples.  It was a very cute touch for a fall wedding.  I cannot imagine having spent these past six months engaged to Andrew, instead of being married, however; a fall wedding would have been our first choice.  Weddings are great, but in perspective, they've got nothing on the being married part!  Ok...I got sidetracked, where was I?  Oh yes, after the reception was finished I offered my services on the clean up crew by confiscating some of the decorations (aka 14 Granny Smith Apples).  This lead me to my week of apples.

     Andrew and I had friends over one night and I made Smoked Gouda Stuffed Chicken with Apples and an Apple Dapple Cake.  This accounted for about 8 of the supply of wedding apples.  But my big project for the week was to make Apple Butter.  I was so pleased with the way it turned out.  My father informed me that he ate half of the jar I gave to him and my mom, in one sitting.  I used a recipe by Elise Bauer from her website simplyrecipes.com.  The only alteration I made was I used pumpkin pie spice instead of all spice.  It was quite labor intensive, but well worth it!  I made my own labels to put on the jars and it has been very fun to give out.

   The apple butter left me with 2 remaining Granny Smiths that are being added to for Pocket Pies this weekend.  Needless to say, I am now convinced that I need an Granny Smith Apple Tree in my back yard.  They are not my favorite to eat raw, but they are my favorite to bake with.  There are so many wonderful things to still be created!

    This is my FAVORITE tool when it comes to cooking with apples...

It may look old-fashioned, but it peels, it cores, and it slices apples perfectly.  I am very slow when it comes to peeling apples.  I would highly recommend it!