quick and easy meals for 1 or 2

Well Christmas was on a Friday and the weekend went by without us being invited to dinner again. We went all over Rome and saw LOTS of stuff. The coliseum, the catacombs, the Vatican (yeh we were sober this time) the river, that fountain where you toss coins in and make a wish and on and on. We were scheduled to leave on Friday. On Thursday morning before we got out on our ventures Mrs. Ricci sends word to us via the cute daughters that we were invited to dinner again that night. We show up a little early to offer to help, but really just to get a chance to get giggly with the girls again. So I got a chance to watch the meal being done. She put out some great provolone with some roasted red peppers and some ravioli that she dipped in some thick milk, buttermilk I guess, and fried them in hot oil. Served them with some marinara sauce that had been spiced up with some red pepper flakes. Wow they were good. Of course the wine appeared and we had acquired quite a taste for it by now. To the point that Mrs. Ricci got it across that it was supposed to be sipped as a complement to the food not chug a lugged. Mr. Ricci appeared and sat down with us. We were learning Italian a little and the girls were making us tell them the English words for everything that came up so the communication was getting better. Mr. Ricci chug a lugged, but we were cool. Mama Ricci cooked up some pork chops in a big skillet. Took them out and put them on a platter on the back of the stove then put a big hunk of butter and about half a bottle of white wine in the pan. She let the wine simmer in there while she sorta scraped the stuff from cooking the chops off the bottom of the pan. Then she added chopped up black and green olives to the mixture and let it simmer about 5 minutes more. Put that all over the chops. Some pasta with the spicy marinara over it. Some salad made from tomatoes (pompodoras) with some fresh mozzarella and basil then drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Some great Italian bread and some more of that red wine. WOW! We helped the girls clean up and do the dishes and even managed to bump into them a few times. Lots of giggles.