Cooking and gardening and sick kids oh my!

Ashwyn now has the same chest infection Erin had. He woke up on Friday wheezing like a bellows. We have to give him antibiotics, which we do by sneaking them into his juice (refer to earlier post about trying to give him panadol for reasons why we don't just give them to him straight). Even this is difficult as he is off his food, and not as keen on juice as usual. Yesterday he ate half a banana and a piece of watermelon. And he wanders round the house moaning this funny little cry which sounds like a lost puppy. To start off with it was really plaintive, but now it is becoming rather wearing. And then, of course, there is the usual side-effect of antibiotics.

It has been a busy weekend, aside from sooky sick babies. Spring has most assurely sprung in the garden, evidenced by the appearance of leaf buds on the grape vine. Grape vines are the most astonishing things. In winter you would swear they are dead sticks. In summer they are so boiling full of life that if you cut them the sap practically pours out (incidentally you can use the sap for making cheese).  The cherry tree has finished flowering, and looks like we might get a reasonable number of cherries. I was a bit worried because it was such a mild winter and cherries like a bit of frost. Today I dug some compost into the vegetable garden and planted some beans. Beans are wonderful to grow. You have to have very black thumbs to cause a bean not to grow, and I have seen them germinate in damp dust.

Before I went to Canberra I planted some herbs. We have a little space in the patio where there used to be a tree. We regretfully cut it down (well I was regretful anyway, I hate to see trees being cut down) last year, and the arborist ground the stump down. So at first we had a hole full of sawdust. But since then the fungus and the worms have been at work, and now it is a hole mostly full of soil. So I turned it into a herb garden, and planted some strawberries too. Then, practically overnight the snails came out and ate all the mint. Nothing else, just the mint. If anyone meets a snail with really fresh breath you can assume it has been raiding my garden.

I also did a bit more experimentation with recipes for the feast. I made bizcocho, which are a little bit like macaroons or amaretti, except flavoured with anise. At least, they are supposed to be flavoured with anise, but I put cinnamon in instead, because I am already having an anise flavoured thing, and anise is one of those things that you either love or hate.

I also made two kinds of little fried pastry. One, called in Spanish by the rather unwieldy name of Empanadas de azucar fino  or little sugar pastries, are still made around the mediterranean today under their rather more evocative Italian name calisciones. They are basically filled with marzipan. Marzipan is not so easy to make it turns out, but it may be that I was not patient enough. Marzipan is another of those things that you either love or hate. I love it. Andy says it is like eating ants. The second kind is called robioles and contains a mixture of hazlenuts, almonds, pine nuts and eggs. These were a little bit bland and may need more sugar.

And finally I made some lamb pasties. These Andy approved of. I thought they were nice, but now I am a bit worried that they are a little bit too similar to something else I was planning to serve, and in the same remove too.

And it was father's day and neither Andy nor I managed to call our fathers. Not only that, but I completely failed to post my dad a father's day card. Not from any malice or lack of desire, just busyness and forgetfulness.