Italian Foods

How to Setup an Italian Food Theme

Your Italian food-themed dinner should include an appetizer, soup, two main entrees, wine and dessert. Traditional Italian cuisine is a delicious experience. Simple recipes using the freshest ingredients possible are key to a successful Italian meal. Foods are often enhanced with fresh herbs, spices, garlic and olive oil. An Italian meal is meant to be eaten and enjoyed slowly, course by course. Decorate your tables in the colors of the Italian flag, red, green and white. Add grapes and wine bottles to your table setting to enhance the Italian feel.

Instructions

o        1

Start your meal with Italian wedding soup, a wonderful beginning to a traditional Italian dinner. Wedding soup is a beef or chicken broth-based soup with a mixture of carrots, celery, onions, greens and spices. Little meatballs and pastina (tiny pieces of pasta) are also added to the soup.

o        2

Serve an antipasta as an appetizer. Antipasta, which means "before the meal," is a combination of cured meats such as salami, pepperoni and prosciutto, and preserved vegetables such as peppers, mushrooms and artichokes. Arrange the meats and vegetables on a platter for your antipasta. Prepare a salad using an assortment of fresh salad greens such as iceberg, romaine and bib lettuce, and fresh tomatoes. Drizzle the salad with olive oil and a red wine vinegar.

o        3

Serve two entrees, one featuring pasta and the other, meat. Spaghetti, rigatoni or lasagna are excellent choices for your pasta entree. Prepare a light tomato sauce, using fresh ingredients to complement the pasta. For your meat entree, chicken or veal marsala are great, traditional Italian choices. The chicken or veal is lightly sauteed in a marsala wine and mushroom sauce. Select a dark red wine to complement your meal.

o        4

Serve a platter of biscotti, traditional Italian cookies, for dessert. These almond cookies, which have been twice baked to give them a wonderful flavor, are a mainstay on most Italian tables. Another great dessert option is cannoli, tubular cookies filled with a creme and often dipped in chocolate or powdered sugar.