WHAT isn’t on my partner’s new study-work-dog-gym timetable is the breakdown of household duties. I am cooking dinner Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. My partner dishes out the gruel Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Friday is a free-for-all. I don’t think either of us has put this much thought into the weekly menu all summer. Light, easy meals and an absence of family members from the dinner table means we’ve made our mealtime decisions on the run and based on who’s about.

On Saturday I cooked a pumpkin bake I spied in a magazine and a pasta salad with baked sweet potato, fetta and pesto. Everything was made using leftovers from the fridge and pantry. The pumpkin needed to be cooked up, or tossed, and the pesto was made with coriander and capsicums leftover from a meal earlier in the week. All very tasty and no one had to do a run to the shops for missing ingredients.