Dinner Tonight: Lotta Ricotta

Inspiration for tonight's dinner: easy and lovely. It's a lotta ricotta. And a lotsa lemons. And doggone divine. Dive on in to ricotta-coated swirls of spaghetti and ambrosial pink clouds of creamy strawberried bliss.

Creamy, light, perfection. On the table in under an hour. Oh. Yes. 

The Menu

Lemon Ricotta Spaghetti with Arugula by melissav

Fresh Strawberries in a Pink Cloud by AppleAnnie

The Grocery List (for 4)

A lotta ricotta! (It's in both recipes: 6 tablespoons in one, 3/4 of a cup in the other. Get at least a pint and save the rest for bruschetta)
1/4 cup mascarpone
2 cups strawberries
8 cups arugula 

As you can tell, this is a pretty great menu. (You probably even have arugula or something similar and green in the fridge, and can strike that from the list.). We're assuming that you have lemons, red pepper flakes, a pound of dried pasta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt, honey, and vanilla extract hanging around your kitchen. If not, you'll need all of those things too!

The Plan 

1. The strawberries need to mingle in the honey-lemon-balsamic syrup (are you drooling yet?) so do that bit first. Though AppleAnnie says to refrigerate the mixture, for a quick dessert you can just leave it out on the counter to preserve the lusciousness of the berries and to speed up the macerating process. 

2. Onto the pasta! It comes together pretty quickly, so just boil your spaghetti, toss it together and serve. Don't get too full though, you know those berries await.

3. Berries! Whip up the pink cloud (I wish everything I ate had such dreamy names, don't you?) and dive on in.