An Italian Feast

It's that time of year when Tyler and I start to get nostalgic for Italy. The other night I was watching Chopped on the Food Network and they were using all Italian ingredients. Later as I was explaining to Tyler what the chefs created, he got the wonderful idea of cooking an elaborate five-course Italian feast for our next date night! That night we both went to bed hungry and were already planning the menu for our feast!

Yesterday we spent about two hours cooking and over an hour eating (which is longer than we usually spend eating dinner) and thoroughly enjoyed our Italian date! It brought us back to our times in Rome and Assisi and we even listened to "Traditional Italian" songs from Pandora as we cooked!

We planned our menu based off our favorite dishes we ate when we were in Italy. We started off with two antipasto dishes, bruschetta and fried cheese balls.

Tyler found this recipe for fried cheese balls and they were delicious! I was very impressed!

Then we had pumpkin ravioli. This was my second time making ravioli from scratch and they turned out really well.

Our main course consisted of pork chops, potatoes and asparagus. We waited between each course and made sure we ate slowly and enjoyed the meal! In Italy they really enjoy meals and don't rush through them like we tend to do here.

And like all good Italian meals, we finished it up a cheese and fruit tray. 

We even had different wines to go with the different courses! Tyler researched what would be best paired with each of our dishes.

We love to cook and we love to eat, so this was a wonderful date night. Since we don't have any plans to go to Italy in the near-future, we'll just have to continue to cook Italian food and savor our good memories!

Maryland

Dene' and Tyler standing in front of Marian shrine, St. Clement's Island in background

This past weekend Tyler, Aly, and I went to Newburg, Maryland for a FOCUS regional gathering. It was a weekend to get away and enjoy time with other missionaries in the Atlantic and Northeast region.

We had the whole day on Saturday to make our own plans so we went with a few friends to explore two historical sites around the area, St. Mary's City (the first capital of Maryland) and St. Clement's Island (the first place Mass was celebrated in North America.)

St. Mary's City, view of Potomac River

Tyler's senior thesis was on the persecution of Catholics in colonial America and he did a lot of research about these two sites so it was very special for him to be able to visit these places!

Old House in Colonial St. Mary's City

Tyler in front of plaque commemorating religious freedom in colonial Maryland

St. Clement's Island