Maitrand Bertrand

This is Maitrand Bertrand.

He is an egg timer, and as you can see... we only have 5 Minutes left!!!

He is one version of all the very cool and funky kitchen gadgets that can be had here in Germany. He and I decided to get busy yesterday.

Ever since I was really small and living on our farm in southwestern Ontario I have wonderful memories of my mother making preservers in our kitchen with her stainless steel pots with their bake-a-lite handles and all the produce from our garden. I have always wanted to do this and even thought I love to cook and bake all kinds of food I always thought the prospect of "canning" seemed a little to daunting to even try...

Here in Germany we have several apple trees, and a white, black and red current bush that were loaded with fruit this fall ...so I figured I had to give it a try.

Here is a pot of red currants bubbling merrily away. In another pot I have the jars boiling, and I have some delicious apple juice waiting in the wings to be turned into apple jelly.

I France we had the delight of sampling a fruit jelly infused

with Rosemary and Thyme, which is delicious with fowl, pork or Foie Gras

so I was determined to give it a try. Fresh herbs from the garden...

Once the jelly had passed the freezer test,

(jells on a freezer cold plate)

I poured the jelly into the bottles in which I had previously placed sprigs of herbs.

Then I re steamed the jars to be sure they were sterile,

Maitrand Bertrand surveys the results...Looks pretty good no??

*salivating*