She'd prepared 4 lots of lasagna, each was a failure in its own way. The first had been left to cook for too little time, leaving it to still be relatively hard, and was mostly stuck together in a large clump. Not only that, but she'd also somehow mixed up tomato sauce and BBQ sauce, so the lasagna was completely covered in BBQ sauce and honestly, this was a trend that most definitely wouldn't catch on.
She'd tasted it, and holy, the only thing you could taste was BBQ sauce, it was extremely strong. Also the texture… just didn't sit right with her, and her, being the un-picky eater she was, not liking this dish only showed just how awful it truly was. One time, she'd been dared to eat a slice of pizza her friends had covered in mayonnaise, chips, custard and ice cream. She did it, she took a bite of the pizza. Laughably, she'd said that that wasn't unpleasant and had proceeded to finish the slice, but right here and now, she couldn't bear to eat another bite of her own strange concoction.
She'd learnt her lesson and left the lasagna to cook for a longer period of time, however, in contrast to the first attempt, the second was over-cooked, in fact, it was completely burnt. The once red-coloured lasagna was now pitch black, it was rock hard and when Emma took a bite out of it, instead of it breaking it felt more along the lines of her own teeth breaking. She'd even gone as far as to check in a mirror to see if any teeth has fallen out or had chipped, luckily she hadn't noticed that any had.
The thirds' vegetables had been cut into chunks which were just slightly too large for lasagna, she had to give up the idea of letting him try this batch too. Not only that, but she had added too much sauce to this batch and it was too watery. The lasagna was chunky and soggy, it was not at all what she had fantasised about giving Mr Thomas, it was the same with the past two creations.
The fourth looked the most edible but was somehow worse than all the other attempts combined, she didn't even know where she went wrong with this one, it seemed like too many things, firstly, it seemed sweet. Almost too sweet, not seem caused by the tomato sauce. Secondly, it was watery, but she couldn't even tell how. Finally, along with those concerns, it was also hard, the layers were each hard and chewy, making it almost tedious to take bites out of it.
People write guides and recipes to show people how to make certain dishes in the so-called correct way, however, she may as well just write a guide on all the wrongs easy possible to make lasagna. It'll not only be mildly entertaining, but it'll also earn people against cooking it incorrectly. Two birds with one stone. Although, she didn't have the time nor patience to try doing such a thing and instead got up from her seat at the counter, and went back to make another batch of lasagna after letting out a long and tired sigh.
After much anticipation, Emma crossed her fingers and with her flowery oven mitts, she opened the oven door and carefully took out the tray with the lasagna in it. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she put it door gently on the table, she clasped her hands together and prayed. She was close to giving up and she promised this would be her last attempt of the day, this was as she was tired and had homework to finish before taking a shower and heading to bed. Not only that, but she'd also lost most-to-all of her hope of making a decent dish to present to Mr Thomas.
She slowly opened one eye, to take a small peep at her creation, seeing what she thought to be an average-looking lasagna, she opened the other eye and let her hands drop to her sides. She bent over slightly to take a look at her cooking, seeing nothing terribly abnormal she decided to take a small sniff. It also didn't seem to smell like anything too strange, it was mostly just a pleasant fragrance of tomato sauce and meat, with hints of smells of different types of vegetables.
She steeled her nerves and reached for her knife and fork, she gingerly cut the corner of the lasagna and lifted the small slice to her lips. She swallowed the saliva in her mouth and gently transferred the food from her fork to her mouth, she chewed for a while and swallowed it.
Emma smiled happily, she was close to jumping in joy. After all this time she'd finally made something edible. Little did she know that when she'd gone to take a bathroom break from her cooking, her mother had passed by the kitchen before stopping in her tracks due to the abnormal smell of burnt lasagna coming through the doorframe. She'd gone into the room and looked around to find the source, she'd seen the saddening sight of four different batches of lasagna thrown away. Although, she didn't feel too bad, after all, from the smell alone she could tell they weren't appetising.
She'd looked around once more and noticed that the oven was on and being used, she looked inside and saw another batch of lasagna. She'd reduced it fork its poor, the inevitable fate of once again being thrown away, by not only adjusting the temperature the oven was working at but by taking it out and messaging around with the spices and adding more of the fillings in some areas to make it taste better. She'd then put it back and left as though she'd never been there.
Her efforts hadn't been in vain and her daughter was now extremely happy and twirling around the kitchen ecstatically. If Louisa had seen such a sight her face would've broken into a smile and she would've congratulated the young girl for her hard work and dedication. Although, no matter how you look at it, all she'd done was make a slightly worse than average lasagna.