Mom in the City

-After attending the Italian cooking event that I wrote about earlier, I figured that I'd try some Italian dishes at home.

I'm realistic (and time-crunched) so I haven't tried to make homemade pasta.  Instead, I have been using Barilla's Piccolini line of miniature Italian pasta shapes (my boys especially like the Mini Wheels).  On a side note, Barilla and Scholastic have a storybook about sharing family meals that you can find (along with kid-friendly recipes, tips for cooking with kids and a free book offer) on http://www.scholastic.com/Barilla/.  I serve the pasta with homemade meatballs (I use ground beef or turkey plus one crumbled bread end, Parmesan cheese, Lawry's seasoned salt, black pepper, worcestershire sauce and a bit of spaghetti sauce to make the meatballs; then, I simmer them in spaghetti sauce - yummy!)

- (Following are some of the pictures that Kim Orlando of TravelingMom.com sent me from the Italian dinner.)

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(Here's me learning from chef Andrea Tiberi of Eatalian Style)

(Here, I'm taking out the Grana Padano cheese basket that I had just cooked.)

(This is the home made "Gnudi" pasta)

And 

-Lastly, I read about an interesting recipe contest, the  CheeseSticks "Twist & Crunch" recipe contest.  People are supposed to come up with creative uses for CheeseSticks, CheeseCrisps, or SweetSticks in their everyday recipes.  I guess that I'm not that creative.  Besides making a party mix, I have no idea what I would make with these types of products.  If you're more creative than I am, you can read the full details and enter the contest (through June 20th) here.