A Labour Of Love...

***Disclaimer...the lasagne pictured is not mine, although I'll admit, mine was a fair representation.

Wednesday afternoons/evenings are tricky here with kids sporting commitments and it makes for an interrupted evening meal.

So...at 5pm I take Myles to footy training, that finishes at 6.30...the round trip is about 20-25 minutes depending on traffic. I come home, make the final preparations for dinner then head off and pick him up, at the same time dropping Matilda at her 6.45pm cheerleading class. I then drop Myles back home and head back to pick Matilda up. Her class finishes at 7.45pm...mostly I take a drink, my book or The Australian crossword and my phone and wait in the car park...I usually manage a quick phonecall to stay in touch with friends. We fly home, really hungry by this stage and have dinner while watching Spicks & Specks. Last night I worked out that the time taken to do all of this was an hour and forty five minutes and 37.5 kilometres...phew...!!!

I like to be ahead of myself and try and have something ready that needs very little attention right at serving time. Our family has some pretty specific dietary needs...Josh & Myles have a number of food sensitivities and cannot have egg, dairy or nuts (with the exception of pine nuts, but they are seeds). Josh is also highly sensitive to eggplant, Myles has never had it but it's a sure bet he will be. Matilda is vegetarian but eats fish, dairy & eggs and I am highly allergic to crustaceans. John is the only family member who had escaped. As the boys have got older they are less sensitive and can have some dairy and egg.

All of this makes meal preparation "interesting" to say the least, last night I made a vegetable lasagne from the ground up, although I will own up to not making the lasagne sheets this time and used prepared ones instead. It is a labour of love...a labour intensive meal indeed. The vegetable sauce simmered for two hours through the afternoon, it smelled divine, ( or so the dorky Optus Representative who keeps coming to our door to try and get our custom back, but that's a whole post on it's own, told me)...the kids said that they love coming home from school when there are cooking smells. Matilda told me that she feels that I love them lots when she can smell dinner cooking.

Last night it just "worked"...the sauce/pasta/bechamel balance was exact...when the lasagne was cut you could see perfect layers, the salad was filled with greens from our garden and the potatoes golden & crunchy.

There is just enough leftover for my lunch today.

Life is kind sometimes.