Mac and cheese and pizza

March 22, 2025 10:43 PM

My focus has definitely been on my Teochew site lately, but I still make time to have some fun cooking sessions with my friends! My friend and I get together every other week and we alternate picking a dish to cook. This Friday, it was her turn and she chose pizza and a spicy mac and cheese, because she's really into spicy food and because she had a whole bunch of heavy cream she needed to use up.

For the most part, I was in charge of the pizza. I just wanted to do something with a simple tomato sauce and cheese, but I let my friend pick the toppings. We added mushrooms, onions, bacon, arugula, and sliced tomatoes, because tomatoes are my favorite pizza topping. My friend really wanted to put jalapeño on it as well, but Aldi was all out!

I think I'm getting a little better at spreading out this pizza dough into a nice circular shape! We cooked the pizza at 500°F for nine minutes, and I was actually really happy with how it came out. I feel like I almost always overcook my pizza and end up with a really hard crust, but this was still nice and soft! I might try to crank up to oven to 525 next time, but I have no idea what my pizza pan can withstand.

My friend did most of the cooking for the mac n cheese. She took out her cast iron pan for the first time ever, and we honestly didn't know whether it needed to be cleaned or seasoned before using it, and we also didn't know how to properly clean and season it after using it 😅 But it seemed to cook the mac and cheese well!

The mac and cheese was quite tasty, but man it was heavy. I took a small portion for myself and then I felt like I couldn't eat any more. But I thought it actually worked quite well with a bit of that pizza sauce on top.

And even though I don't care for spicy foods like my friend does, I'll admit that jalapeño would have been really nice in this. Maybe I'll try making another spicy mac and cheese again, but I think I'll just stick to using milk in my mac and cheese. The heavy cream and bacon was too much for me.

Overall, this was a successful meal! Next time it'll be my pick for what we're making. What should I choose? 🤔