Company! Company! What would we do without company!?!

On Sunday we hosted a great dinner party (if I do say so myself!) with two of Tony's high school buddies, Frank and Jack, and their wives, Roxanne and Adrienne. Tony went all out Calabrian-style which was fun since that is the area of Italy that Tony's dad hails from. Adrienne is Italian so we knew that we needed to keep it real! Now, when we have these dinners, Tony thinks about the menu and execution for weeks. Then we plan and shop for days. And then we cook for the entire weekend! It wears me out, but it's a labor of love for him. This time everything was a new recipe. Gutsy, no?!? The trickiest thing was going to be the HOMEMADE RAVIOLI! Yes - from scratch. Meaning, you start with a pile of flour and eventually end up with this:

It WAS pretty cool actually, though my wrists hurt from kneading and rolling that darn dough! We separated them and put them in plastic containers awaiting their being boiled on Sunday. They were filled with a little piece of soppresatta sausage and a ricotta/parmesan/egg mixture. I will tell you right now (lest you wait too long to find out) that they were DELICIOUS served with a yummy bolognese sauce! Tony was practically ready to make them again that same day! I think we may be making many more of these in our future.

Other delicacies served to our guests included a lovely antipasto mix of stuffed olives, veggies and beans; a lentil soup; multigrain rolls (thanks Rhodes!); and a great chicken cacciatore, followed by a tossed salad a la the Italian order of things. The meal was topped off by some fabulous homemade cream puffs brought by Adrienne. And the sister missionaries stopped by (as per Tony's dictum) to load up on some of the yumminess after the meal was over. You'll notice that we had a sister switch - but the new one has received Tony's "stamp of approval" - so away we go!