Current surveys show that Italian food still ranks highest in popularity on restaurant menus across the country. With so many other ethnic foods gaining interest in the food world this surprised me a little when I recently found it out. I know it is true in our convent (that’s why we have Italian night on Friday of every week) but didn’t expect it was on such a large scale. This being the case let’s consider some more Italian versions of  favorite meals and perhaps something other than provincial tomato sauce dishes  that usually come to mind when we think of Italian cooking.

This week I experimented with chicken using some very typical Italian ingredients with the exclusion of tomatoes.  I came up with a beautiful and flavorful Italian chicken featuring citrus fruit as well as figs, olives, garlic and herbs and seasonings all native to Italy.