Harper’s love of cooking has really kept me on my toes in terms of finding things to make. Before I get started on last night’s meal, I have a few clarifications:

1. I am not completely obsessed with Giada! I happen to have a backlog of Everyday Italian on my DVR right now and there’s nothing else to watch while the Olympics are buffering, so that’s why I’ve been making so many of her recipes. Don’t get me wrong, they are awesome, but I don’t want you to think that I am some kind of Giada fanatic! I don’t actually own one of her cookbooks, but I would consider getting one in the future.
2. I am not a culinary extraordinaire by any stretch of the imagination. I definitely served two generous bowls of Cheerios for lunch yesterday. I do happen to love cooking and my husband says I’m pretty good at it, and I try as much as possible to serve my kids fresh, homemade meals because I think it’s important. A lot of moms say they hate cooking once they have kids, but I think it’s more fun now since Harper is into it. We’ll see how long that lasts!

So anyway, onto the meatballs. Last night we made Giada’s (ha!) Orecchiette with Mini Chicken Meatballs. The meatballs were outstanding and I would 100% make them again. We often make Swedish meatballs and the kids really like it, but these were much better. The trick was definitely to mix all of the other ingredients first before adding the meat, then just barely incorporate the meat. The texture was just perfect. I don’t have a melon baller, so we used a cookie scooper instead. The meatballs were a little bigger, but it was so easy for Harper to use. Also, the only orecchiette pasta I could find was the Whole Foods organic stuff, and Portman and I both thought it was a little too thick and starchy. Next time I will go to Giant and try to find the Barilla pasta in the blue box.

Instead of cherry tomatoes I used grape tomatoes and just left them whole. We made both of the kids try one, but they were a little freaked out by the tomato “popping” in their mouths! Other than that they ate it with no complaints, and Harper put down at least 4 meatballs by herself!