Dinnertime with children

Dinner! So I used to love planning and making dinner - especially when friends were coming over and there was wine involved! Nowadays though it's a necessity -I need to feed the children dinner almost EVERY DAY... this isn't helped by the fact that A has a limited range of foods he is willing to eat and C just says "can I have what you're having“ which often means she has 2 dinners! Once when A was about 4 I had leftover chicken and decided to branch out and make a chicken lasagne and surpise surprise both children (and my husband) really enjoyed it. Yay I thought, I'm onto a winner here. All that veg, protein, carbs and dairy in one bowl, how perfect. Unfortunately for me that didn't last long as the next time I went to make it A asked for it without any of the red - so no tomato-based sauce. So his became white sauce, chicken and lasagne sheets which then turned into white sauce and lasagne sheets. This has now become Thursday night dinner after swimming - this for a child that won't eat pasta and cheese sauce?!?

Bechamel sauce (aka white sauce, or cheese sauce)

I make this from scratch pretty much every week for Thursday night dinner. One day I will remember to double or triple the quantity and freeze portions, but until that day comes I'll be spending that hour between fetching the children from school and taking them to swimming mixing up a sauce.

Equal quantities of butter (unsalted for the children) and plain flour

Milk, warm

Cheese

Melt the butter and then slowly add in the flour mixing until you have a roux. Pour in a bit of the heated milk and whisk until it's all absorbed into the roux. Keep doing this until you have a thick sauce without lumps (or maybe just a few less lumps!) that doesn't taste like flour. It's a great workout for the arms too! Add in some grated cheese and mix until it's melted into the sauce.

That can then be layered with the lasagne sheets -remember to put the sauce down first, and finish with more sauce to make sure the pasta cooks well. A tip if you don't have much time (and I never do when we walk in from swimming starving!) is to break the lasagne sheets into smaller pieces and still layer them with the sauce. Bake, covered in foil (which stops the top from browning too much and causing the children to refuse to eat the food) until lasagne sheets are soft. You could also use this to make a proper lasage or mac 'n cheese!