I’ve Lost My Cooking Mojo…..Handmade Thursday.

Let me start by saying….I’m not a great cook!

However I enjoy feeding my family, we always sit down for dinner every night at around 6 o’clock, once Tall Dad is back from work.

I firmly believe that it’s extremely important that a family sits down around a table, has their meal together at least once a day rather than on the go – of course sometimes this just isn’t possible! 

When you eat together you enjoy the family, find out what everyone’s done that day and children also learn table manners. It’s where families can enjoy time together. Great for kids to open up, if they have anything that they want to share.

I do try to cook a meal from scratch for my family every day. Well (and here is the confession bit) up until recently, and it’s only been in last couple of months, I’ve gotten really lazy! Though we’ve still sat down as a family, I have relied a little too much on convenience foods, and I have let things slip.

Well from today I was determined that this was going to end. I was going to start with my favourite dish. Its easy to do, and yummy!!

Vegetarian Lasagne

here are a few photographs of the process

• 1 red and 1 white onion, sliced.
• 1 courgette roughly chopped.
• 1 red pepper, sliced.
• 5 mushrooms, sliced.
• Olive oil.
• Garlic (add at the end, so not to burn)

Really I just used what I had in my fridge. I prefer everything to be in fairly large pieces, so you can actually taste the individual ingredients and textures. Either that or I’m a lazy chopper 😉

• 2 tins of chopped Tomatoes.
• Seasoning, and a little sugar.
• Handful of herbs, chopped.
• Splash of red wine.
• Generous squeeze of tomato puree.
• You can if not vegetarian, add a drained can of Anchovies at this stage too.

For the cheese sauce I make  a roux, (butter and plain flour) cooking this out and adding warmed milk, which has had a bay leaf and an onion in it, until thickened. I take it off the heat and add a little cheese (I also add english mustard at this stage as well) and stir again.

I actually couldn’t find any cheese, apart from parmesan, which I sprinkled on the top – so it was a bechamel sauce really.

And here is the finished dish. A tad messy eek!

Dished up

So, I am going to try my hardest to make more of an effort.  Not only with the cooking and trying new things. I am going to try to really make an effort with this precious half hour in our day when we can sit and relax and chat away the day, whether it’s about success’, or just a plain old moan and groan.

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theanamumdiary x