Today was one of those days where I knew I was going to need comfort food even before I woke up. The Modern Love Machine’s 5:30 a.m. alarm ended a blissful dream in which I was given a $5,000 shopping spree to Anthropologie. When he woke me up again to tell me goodbye for the day, I could feel the trappings of a full-on migraine. When my alarm went off an hour later, I jumped out of bed, downed some migraine meds and went back to sleep for an hour, waiting for them to do their job. When NPR’s Morning Edition ended at 9 a.m., the migraine was mostly gone, but my body ached as a side effect of the drugs. When I checked my e-mail, I had a message from a co-worker in another city telling me she’d be off work today, but oh by the way, can I do for her this thing she needs done that will take me more than just a few minutes to complete?

So when my mom called at 1 p.m. and made me (unintentionally or otherwise) feel bad for having the kind of job and life that makes it damn near impossible to plan ahead for things like baptisms and wedding showers, I was glad my comfort-food homemade mac and cheese was already in the oven.

I have this weird longing to be the kind of graceful whiz in the kitchen who can put together beautiful, wholesome, dishes that might partially come from a recipe, but are personalized with my own genius and creativity and are always made from scratch. I don’t know where that desire comes from — there are many good cooks in my family, but the recipes I have from them are mostly meat-and-potato meals or casseroles made of things that come in a can. I am inspired by excellent food bloggers like the much-revered Pioneer Woman, my neighbor Tennessee Locavore and a high school classmate of mine, To Kiss the Cook (who randomly I ran into at BlogHer two years ago, having no idea she was both an amazing cook and blogger). But I really think it’s the spirit of having a beautiful kitchen in a hundred-year-old house that just makes me want to do some old-school cooking. Or the fact that this damn house is cold during the winter, and the oven helps make it less so.

I know all of these graceful cooks acquired their skills through lots of practice and trial and error, so I’m forcing myself to practice and try out new things when I’m by myself or the MLM is willing. (I will be blogging more about these culinary adventures. Stay tuned for tales of pretzel bread and fancy oatmeal. Do not expect to hear much about the disappointing whole grain pecan French toast recipe out of Ready Made.) Midway through the morning, I knew I needed to cure my hankering for comfort food. I was acquainted with fancy mac and cheese twice in the past year when 1. I went to S’mac in NYC to eat lunch one day (Holy Mother of God! so good!) and 2. A friend made Ina Garten’s Grown-up Mac and Cheese for my birthday meal this summer (Holy Mother of God! so good!) While still in my PJs — I work from home most of the time these days — I figured I could concoct a fancy mac and cheese recipe from the contents of my fridge and pantry.

Here’s how it went.

I almost always start with a base recipe for these things, either by Googling or searching my Joy of Cooking book, which has a recipe for everything and is a must-have for any kitchen. The base recipe for this came from a previously discovered website called ‘30 Days, 30 Ways with Macaroni and Cheese.’ The recipe is for Margarita Macaroni and Cheese, which is a more basic version of what I ate at S’mac and involved things I mostly had in my kitchen, because I was NOT leaving the house.

Basic ingredients:

6 to 7 ounces elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups milk
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil, plus extra for garnish
2 to 3 cups (8 to 12 ounces) Wisconsin Mozzarella Cheese, grated

Instead of actual macaroni, I used elbow noodles leftover from my foray into homemade minestrone. I normally would use a fresh tomato, but because of the aforementioned achy feeling, I didn’t feel like chopping today. My neglected basil plant committed suicide recently, so I went with dried basil. The amount of any kind of mozzarella we had in the fridge, let alone the amount of Wisconsin mozzarella, equaled zero, so I put my own twist on the dish by using every other kind of cheese we had — because the best kind of cheese is more cheese. What I used was some (somewhat old) mild cheddar, sharp cheddar and (slightly blue) parmesan. I also took a page from the Barefoot Contessa and crumbled up some bits of the leftover whole grain bread from the failed Ready Made French toast to create a bread crumb crust.

The directions are thus:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cook macaroni as directed on the package. While macaroni is cooking, prepare the sauce.

Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes, or until garlic is fragrant. Whisk in flour, salt and pepper, and cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat and stir in milk. Return to heat, and heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir one minute. Set aside.

Drain pasta and mix with the drained diced tomatoes. Place half of the macaroni in an ungreased 2-quart casserole dish. Sprinkle with half the salt, pepper, basil and cheese. Repeat with remaining macaroni, salt, pepper, basil and cheese. Pour sauce over macaroni.

Cover with a lid or tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer. Serve garnished with fresh basil.

For the record, I hate the phrase “until garlic is fragrant.” What does that mean? If there is any constant rule about garlic, it is that garlic is ALWAYS fragrant. I don’t know how perfectly I followed those instructions. I think maybe I cooked the garlic to a little past the fragrant stage, and the milky sauce bubbled a little too long while I was arranging the cheese on the macaroni and tomato mix.

Speaking of the cheese, I realized after creating the first layer of macaroni and cheese that the two kinds of cheddar made it more of a Mexican-style dish than an Italian one so I dug out a can of ripe olives from the pantry and threw in half for good measure and ate the rest while the dish was baking.

The result? C’est magnifique and exactly what I needed after a crummy morning. Speaking of crummy, I expected the bread-crumb crust to be a bust and that I’d have to scrape it off, but it turned out to offer just the kind of crunch the dish needed. The olives and tomatoes mixed perfectly with the cheesy bake. None of the improvisation ruined the dish. My only regret is that the only bacon we had in the house was frozen at the time I decided to start cooking and therefore unavailable.

arrrrrgh! I managed to make every photo look quasi decent except for this one. Trust me when I say it looks prettier than this in person!

I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but my headache’s gone and the body aches have disappeared. The task for my co-worker is complete, and I think I may have enough energy for a run after I’m done with the rest of my work for the day. And even after eating a fourth of my two-quart casserole full of mac and cheese, there’s still enough left over for another meal or two. Comforting, indeed.