One day last month, Ali made a lasagne. It was pretty nice and since I hadn’t had lasagne in ages, it inspired me to make the lasagne to end all lasagnes from scratch. I decided to make a huge one that I could get about eight portions out of to freeze for future dinners. And so I began cooking enthusiastically with 2 packs of mince and 2 whole blocks of cheese. The making of the meaty sauce went pretty smoothly however the cheese sauce did not fare so well. In making it, I managed to burn the bottom of the saucepan. Convinced that this was only a minor setback, I ploughed on with my project. Sure enough, once the cheese sauce was finished, it had this nasty burnt taste to it. I naively still believed that once the whole lot was baked in the oven, the burnt taste would go away. How wrong I was!

The lasagne came out of the oven fresh and bubbling and looking amazing however when I tasted it, it still had that relentless burnt taste to it. I tried and tried to like it but I just couldn’t eat it. It was ruined. It didn’t stop Ali and Wig eating it mind you. They were delighted to have a whole massive lasagne to themselves! I don’t know – call me a perfectionist or whatever but in my opinion it was inedible.

Most people would have been discouraged by such a disaster but not me. The very next day I went out and bought two more packs of mince and two more blocks of cheese. I diligently started again from scratch. I had a hankering for lasagne and I was damn well going to have one! Long story short, the mighty lasagne mark II was a success. There was no burning of the cheese sauce and the end product was to die for. I ate a portion for dinner that night while Ali and Wig ate leftover burnt lasagne (haha!) and managed to freeze another five portions.

About a week later, I was home late from work and didn’t really have time to cook dinner. This was the ideal time for me to defrost one of my beautiful lasagne portions. I defrosted it in the microwave a tiny bit before chucking it in the oven to heat it properly. 20 minutes later, the oven was beeping at me like crazy to check it. I extracted the portion and quickly determined that all it required was five more minutes until it was ready to eat. Oh no! In the process of returning the lasagne portion to the oven, I dropped the oven tray and it landed face down, squashing my beautiful lasagne between it and the cold, dirty kitchen floor.

I couldn’t believe it, I wanted to scream. All I wanted in the world was a slice of lasagne. Was that too much to ask?!? In the end I went ahead and defrosted yet another slice of lasagne which I managed to prepare ok. However I am now very wary of lasagne. I don’t think I’m ever meant to really eat it. Whenever I try, there just seems to be trouble. Think I’ll stick to cheese on toast in future…