What you see here is something I haven’t eaten since I was a child: macaroni soup. It just consists of cooked macaroni in a bath of hot milk, melting butter, salt and pepper, and it was a special treat for my mom and me on days when my dad wasn’t home to eat lunch with us (he was definitely not a fan!). It was the perfect sort of meal for a super-picky kid like me. I’m not sure where it came from, just one of several recipes passed down through my mom’s family that I have never been able to track down elsewhere.

I honestly hadn’t thought of macaroni soup for years, but I’m still nursing a head-cold and I wanted a meal that was relatively bland, soft, and easy to make—this fits the bill perfectly, and I was able to share a little piece of my childhood with my son, and now with you.