This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Bertolli®. The opinions and text are all mine.
Every now and then we try to get the kids involved in cooking, the long term goal is for them to start cooking us dinner, in the meantime, it is a fun way to get them interested in helping out in the kitchen. We are working with Bertolli and Kroger to promote their ‘ Taste of Italy ‘ program going on in stores. 
What better way to celebrate a ‘Taste of Italy’ than by having a family feast featuring a family cook-off.
We started to prep for our cook-off with a visit to our go-to neighborhood store, Kroger. Kroger has everything we need for pretty much everything, we are not the family who does one big shopping trip, rather it seems like we are there a couple of times each week for a little bit of this one day and a lot of that the other.
The ‘Taste of Italy’ promotion at Kroger offers you plenty of choices to get creative, we went with the basics, rolls, pasta, some veggies, olives, cheeses, chicken breasts, pepperoni and of course a couple of types of Bertolli Tuscan-inspired sauces.
When we do these family cook-offs, there can be some very inspiring ideas, and at least one of us wants to do a pizza. With this one, we stated up front that no one is making pizza this time and we needed to be more creative.
What followed was some fun organized chaos in the kitchen to prep for our Italian style feast and then a lot of cleaning up!
Logan found a way to skirt around the basic “no pizza rule” by making wraps. These wraps sure looked a lot like pizza until they were rolled up! Regardless, they turned out very tasty. Logan says he was thinking of making a quesadilla, but then thought to himself “quesadillas aren’t really Italian” so then he rolled it up instead of putting another bread shell on top!
He used the baked chicken breast and added pepperoni, black olives, Bertolli Tomato and Basil Sauce, and lots of cheese to make his creation, and he was quite proud of this yummy treat.
Kora loves her pasta and thinks it’s fun to add a little bit of everything into the sauce. She took her broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and mushrooms then decided to chop them up really fine and put them into both the Tomato and Basil Sauce and the Alfredo Sauce from Bertolli. She couldn’t use just any pasta, so she went with some colorful rotini pasta to give it a “fancy” look! Of course no pasta dish is complete until you add your garlic bread (with nearly an entire tub of butter – which mom removed when Kora wasn’t looking) and then added cheese – I guess this isn’t really garlic bread, but let’s go with it!
So last is mom and dad, we went with one of our faves, gnocchi! We prepared the gnocchi and used the Bertolli Alfredo Sauce with it. We also made a quick and easy side of sautéed mushrooms and spinach (with Italian dressing) and of course added some parmesan cheese to all of it. It was quite a tasty treat, and the kids loved the gnocchi, they haven’t had it in years, but now it will be a requested item I am certain.
It is always tough to decide if the cooking or the eating is more fun. We had a blast in the kitchen and just as much fun eating it. When we sit down for a family meal, we always say a couple of things about what made us happy that day. Everyone at the table was glad to have the chance to hang out in the kitchen and make a mess while we made some awesome and delicious food for our family feast.
We enjoyed our ‘Taste of Italy’ with help from Bertolli and Kroger. Bertolli sauces help add a little extra kick to your traditional (or not so traditional!) dishes. How can Bertolli help you and your family?
