Meal plan for reluctant cook? Help please.

[needsdirection]

I've come to cooking late in life and am not yet very confident or good at it! But I'm getting better and do enjoy trying new things and cooking food that my family loves.

However, I find having to come up with a new meal every evening (plus lunches for 18mo) really stressful, and with the 18 mo it's hard to get uninterrupted time to cook. I do stuff when he's napping but he only naps for an hour or so and I have other stuff to do AND need a break!

Dh works till very late - I often don't see him in the evenings - so it's usually just me and the boys (5yo and toddler).

I feel like I spend most of my time worrying about what the next meal's going to be and then rushing to prepare it. And I just don't really want to be cooking complicated/time-consuming things every day - it's too stressful trying to look after the boys at the same time.

I need a simple plan which includes re-heating or adapting something every other day, I guess... I keep trying to write one down but get defeated and give up.

Any ideas?

Um, it's limited.
Chicken casserole, spag bol, lasagne, soups, pork and prune casserole, roast chicken, various tomato sauces for pasta, chicken pie, homemade pesto.

Also don't have a microwave or slow-cooker (should I get one?) and freezer is fairly small, though not too bad.

Starlight, tell me about it. The truth is that I enjoy cooking when someone else looks after the boys - or at least the 18mo - while I'm doing it (almost never). I do get pleasure (and am still slightly amazed when it happens) from making something that everyone loves, but it's just the doing of it that's so stressful. To be honest, I wish we could all just take pills, like astronauts.

Dittany - roast chicken I do regularly, but that's really quick. Other things I do sporadically, either at the weekend when dh is around or during naptime in the week (which I hate doing). I usually do one of these things a week and the rest of the week is sort of muddling through with pasta etc.

I have the Nigel Slater book - it's good, but even half an hour is hard when the 18mo is hanging off my trousers or running off giggling to climb the bookshelves.

And thank you prolesworth - if you're a lazy cook, what else do you have up your sleeve?!