Nom Nom Nom Mom: Tutti, Mangia! Mangia bene!

I don't even know if what I wrote in this post's title is correct. I'm not Italian after all. But for tonight's dinner, my family was "Italian." Well, actually, 3/4 of my little family has Italian heritage in them, so I suppose I was really the only one who was Italian for the 1st time this evening. Anyway, back to business. Just as the title suggests and translates, tonight's dinner was all about eating together and eating well. And I think with the happenstance of the day, with the help of a cooking cousin and a selfless cousin, such made it possible. I was rather excited in making tonight's dinner as the ingredients were not really planned out. I had made my way into the office today to work on a project that needed to get done, and it so happened that my cousin ~ Irene/Ge/Mia/Nurse~whatever she's going by these days was there working the day too. And even better, she brought goodies, both sweet and savory. So as the day goes by I had one of her sweet treats, a peanut butter chocolate muffin, as a rich mid-morning snack! So yummy! And as the work afternoon came to a close, she pops out a small container of homemade Arrabbiata sauce! This is not at all unlike my cousin to come bearing edible goodies. She is constantly cooking & baking, even when she doesn't have the time to do so. It's her passion, and she also shares her gourmet efforts with us...That, and she probably makes us her guinea pigs when wanting to test out a new dish or treat. I say bring it on! And bring extras for later ;) So, back to the Arrabbiata sauce. When she asked who wanted to try the saucy sauce for dinner, I actually deferred it to my other cousin in the office, Darren. But after thinking about it, and the fact that we had earlier been talking about some chicken-veggie-asiago sausages I had recently bought from Trader Joe's (surprise!) to make for dinner, Darren was kind enough to pass on the homemade sauce to me to try tonight. So thank you to my dear cousins for "paying it forward" so to speak letting me be the lucky recipient this time around! Okay, so I leave the office with sauce in hand, sausages at home waiting to be cooked, but nothing in between to accompany the two. So off to Costco I go at this point, and as much as I wanted to avoid it on a Saturday afternoon at the height of free samples time, I took on the challenge of finding the perfect partner to the Arrabbiata sauce and the chicken-veggie-asiago sausages. Since I also wanted to get a container of Pita Pal Pearl Couscous that I also recently blogged about in an earlier post, I headed straight to the refrigerated section. I was on a mission, so all the Holiday decor, toys, free samples, and cute little girl clothes did not thwart my efforts of heading to the refrigerated section ASAP. Once there, I found the couscous, and like it was meant to be I also found Monterey Pasta Company's Spinach & Cheese Ravioli! BINGO! There were other pasta selections too, but I opted for the spinach & cheese since I thought it would be something the Girlies & the Hubby would all be good with when it hit their tastebuds. And after one quick detour to restock on a couple of jars of Nutella (Mmmmmm, Nutella! Perhaps a future blog on this itself...), I was out of Costco in a mere 15 minutes! Isn't that kind of unheard of? So I headed home, hugged & kissed the Girlies & Hubby hello and started pan grilling the chicken-veggie-asiago sausages, heated up a mild and reliable store-bought jarred pasta sauce, placed the nearly cooked sausages in the now heated sauce to simmer some more, boiled up the ravioli, and heated the Arrabbiata sauce...or as Alex eventually monikered it, the Arrabbi-HOT-ta sauce, as it was HOT, but a deliciously good savory HOT. Gee, my cousin is talented and I thank her for sharing her passion of cooking with us, with me tonight. Next mission: Get the Arrabbiata sauce recipe from her. In the end, we all enjoyed our plates of Italy ~ the Girls with mildly sauced Ravioli and sausage, with sides of baby carrots and apples, and glasses of milk, while Alex and I enjoyed our ravioli doused in the Arrabbi-HOT-ta sauce, with sides of arugula salad, apples, and glasses of water just to keep it extra healthy and natural. It definitely was a delicious night of eating together, and eating well, Italian-style!