Festa Italiana-Risoni with chicken, mushrooms and olives

For those of you who do not know this already, Maryann from Finding la Dolce Vita and Marie from Proud Italian Cook have invited us all to an Italian feast. This is their second annual Festa Italiana and if last year is anything to be measured by, I am not missing out on this lovely event. Some of you have already "arrived" with some beautiful dishes and I cannot wait to sample everyone of them.

Maryann says: "It's easy to participate. This is what you have to do..."
Create an Italian dish or drink. Post about it on your blog.Use our badge and link back to both me and Marie. The links should refer to this announcement post and also to Marie's so others can participate.Photograph your dish and send a copy to us. We cannot accept photos that are bigger than 350 pixels wide.Now email us at festaitalianadishes@gmail.comSend us your name, blog's name and url, the photo of your dish, the name of your dish and the permalink to your post.

I decided on a main course called:

Risoni with Chicken, Mushrooms and Olives

Ingredients (4 servings)

8 pieces of chicken - I used drumsticks and thighs
1x410gr tinned tomato and onion mix
15 pitted black olives - sliced in halves
1 small red onion peeled and sliced
250gr mushrooms - sliced
100ml white wine(optional)
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbs cornflour - mixed with a little water
chopped oregano
grated parmesan
pesto
salt/pepper/dried oregano
dried olive and chili mix

Preheat oven to 180C
Place chicken pieces in a ovenproof dish and season with salt, pepper and dried oregano. Top with onion, mushrooms, 10 olives and tomato mix. Add the wine, cover with foil and place in the oven. Cook for about 40-50 minutes. Mix the cornflour with water and the sugar and pour over the chicken - the sauce will thicken almost immediately. Place back in the oven for about 10 minutes ( this time without the foil) or until golden and bubbly! Serve on a bowl full of Risoni(pasta rice) and top with grated parmesan, homemade basil pesto and some more olives. For a final touch, sprinkle with Dried olive and chili mix.
Buon appetito!