Sweet Potato Banana Butter

This is another tradition and absolutely heavenly on freshly baked bread.  This recipe is from Simply Homemade Food Gifts and was requested by a friend this year who said, "You are making that butter stuff again this year, right?!"  The trick of this recipe is that there's actually no butter in it.  It's very confusing ;-)

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of sweet potatoes
• 2 medium, ripe bananas
• 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup honey
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Process:

• Peel the sweet potatoes and cut off the woody portions and ends
• Cut into quarters and cook, covered, in enough boiling, salted water to cover for 15-20 minutes (or until tender)
• Drain and allow to cool slightly
• Place drained sweet potatoes in a food processor, cover and process until smooth.  Add the bananas and process until smooth
• In a large saucepan stir together the sweet potato-banana mixture, brown sugar, honey, lemon juice, cinnamon, salt, ginger and nutmeg
• Bring to boiling, then reduce heat.  Cook, uncovered, over very low heat for about 30 minutes (or until very thick) stirring frequently
• Place the saucepan in a sink filled with ice water to cool the mixture.  Spoon mixture into storage containers.  Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

Notes:

• This recipe will make 4 half pints of butter
• I triple this recipe each year.  This years batch gave me 12 1/2 pints and 2 full pints.  Bonus!
• If you don't have a food processor (mine died, not sure why), you can do small batches in your blender after it's all cooked up.  It takes forever, but will still get the job done.
• This recipe, along with the Cranberry Chutney, make great, simple gifts and seem to make people very happy :-)  I like to give them out before Thanksgiving so they can enjoy them with their meals over the ling weekend.  I also give a pair to each dinner guest/couple on Thanksgiving Day.

ENJOY!!!