Pizza Macaroni & Cheese -- The Pasta That Holds the Week Together

The kitchen is the room I live in. The other rooms are storage for memories — the dining room with its china cabinet, the living room with Paul's shipwreck books, the upstairs bedrooms where the kids grew up and which I have not entered (except to dust) in years. The kitchen is where the present happens. The kitchen is where the food is made and the dog is fed and the morning begins and the evening ends. The kitchen is the entire territory of my daily life now, and I find that this is enough. Karin and I talked Sunday. Stockholm in winter is dark. Duluth in winter is dark. We compared darknesses. We laughed. Karin said: "Linda, do you remember the time Pappa drove us to Two Harbors in a blizzard because Mamma wanted lutefisk?" I said yes. The story unspooled across the phone for twenty minutes. I had forgotten half of it. Karin remembered all of it. The memory was, briefly, complete between us. Mamma's hands shake more than they did last month. I do not point it out. I notice. I notice everything. The shake is small — barely visible when she is at rest, more visible when she lifts her coffee cup, most visible when she is trying to thread a needle. She still threads needles. She still bakes. She still calls me on Tuesdays at 10. The hands shake. The shaking does not stop the doing. The doing is what Mamma is. I cooked Pasta primavera this week. Pasta tossed with spring vegetables sautéed in butter and white wine — asparagus, peas, leeks, dill. Topped with parmesan. The Damiano Center: a regular named Marlene, who has been coming for twelve years, told me her granddaughter just had a baby. She was glowing. She had a photo on her phone. The phone was old and cracked but the photo was clear: a small pink baby in a hospital blanket. Marlene said: "I am a great-grandmother now. The same as you." I said: "Welcome to the club." We hugged. The line continues, even on the hard side of the soup line. Mamma's bread pans are on the shelf where they have always been. I used the smaller one this week. The metal has worn smooth in the places her hands touched it for sixty years. The pan is, in some real sense, a sculpture of Mamma's hands. I knead the bread in the bowl Mamma used. I shape it on the counter Mamma stood at (well, mine, but identical to hers — same Formica color, same dimensions). I bake it in the pan Mamma baked in. The kitchen is the relay. The relay continues. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I have been blogging for years now. The blog began as something to do at night when sleep would not come. The blog has become — without my fully intending it — a small congregation. The readers come back. They read the recipes. They read the parts that are not recipes. They write to me sometimes. They tell me what they cooked. They tell me about their own kitchens, their own losses, their own continued cooking. The congregation is its own form of company. It is enough.

The pasta I made this week was a spring dish — light, bright, something that felt like a window opening. But the recipe I keep coming back to when the week has been long and the kitchen needs to do its most basic job — warmth, ease, enough — is this one: Pizza Macaroni & Cheese, which is exactly what it sounds like and asks nothing of you except a pot and a pan and twenty minutes of patience. I made it on a Tuesday after I got off the phone with Mamma, and it sat on the stove smelling like something a twelve-year-old would love, and I ate two bowls of it, and that felt correct.

Pizza Macaroni & Cheese

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 cups elbow macaroni
• 1 cup pizza sauce
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup mini pepperoni
• 1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup sliced black olives
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook elbow macaroni according to package directions until al dente. Drain and return to the pot.
2. Preheat the oven. Set oven to 375°F (190°C). Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
3. Combine. Add the pizza sauce, half the mozzarella, the cheddar, pepperoni, bell pepper, olives, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder to the pot with the drained pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Stir until evenly combined.
4. Transfer and top. Spread the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Scatter the remaining mozzarella evenly over the top.
5. Bake. Bake uncovered for 20–25 minutes, until the cheese is melted and beginning to brown at the edges and the sauce is bubbling.
6. Rest and serve. Let the dish rest for 5 minutes before serving. It holds its heat well and reheats easily the next day.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 375 | Protein: 17g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 43g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 710mg