Grazie Mama Ricotta!

Tonight was dinner at Mama Ricotta's with Shelly and Anna and we are FULL now! We had a delicious dinner and dessert and have leftovers for tomorrow. The top 100 dish is the penne alla vodka. They have so many great things on the menu that we decided to get a couple of choices "family style" and have calamari as our appetizer. Their calamari is battered so lightly that it doesn't sit too heavy to make you not want to eat your entree. It comes with 2 dipping sauces, both of which were perfect additions. For the entrees, we got the penne and the pasta primavera.



Man, I have GOT to start taking better pictures!

 The penne is tossed with sauteed (always a good cooking technique) pancetta in a pepper vodka, spicy tomato cream sauce. The pasta primavera was angel hair pasta tossed with seasonal veggies and a cream sauce. We also had grilled chicken added. So obviously we're counting our calories, right? I think we were all a little worried that the penne would be spicy, but it really wasn't. The noodles were cooked perfectly and the sauce was so rich and hearty and creamy. The pancetta was a nice touch. The primavera was delicious as well. This is Anna's go-to dish and I fully agree with her choice. When we were in Atlanta for Lena's engagement weekend, I had chicken marsala with angel hair pasta. I could have eaten 5 servings of that stuff. Usually pasta is really heavy, but angel hair is so light that it lets the other ingredients shine through. The vegetables were very fresh and the chicken was seasoned well.

We honestly could've gotten regular sized portions because we ended up taking home our own boxes of each dish. However, we WERE saving room for dessert! Anna chose the nutella pie and Shelly and I both went with the tiramisu. I got a cup of coffee with mine because I think it's basically sacrilege to eat tiramisu without it (are you listening Shelly??). Both desserts were HUGE. We were completely unprepared for the hugeness:



Monstrous wonderful tiramisu



Delicious enormous nutella pie

Needless to say, we added dessert our box to be eaten with our leftovers tomorrow....although I'm thinking I MAY nibble a bit more now....Bravissimo Mama Ricotta!