I grew up spending my summers on an island off the coast of Portland, Maine in the USA. One of the highlights was going into Portland and eating an Italian for lunch or bringing one home for dinner!
These sandwiches were food from the Gods as far as I was concerned. They were made on a long, soft white bun opened down the middle. They were stuffed with American cheese (and ham if you enjoyed that) brown onion, green pepper, black olives, dill pickles and copious wedges of ripe, juicy tomatoes dressed with salt, pepper and oil and tightly wrapped in baking paper.
Here I have recreated the sandwich eliminating all the foods I do not eat but keeping the flavours that seduced me from the first time I ate an Italian! I wrap my cashew nut ‘cheddar cheese.,’ tomatoes, green pepper, brown onion, homemade dill pickles, black olives dressed in olive oil, salt and pepper in my potato tortilla.
It may not be exactly like the original but it has all the right flavours and it brings back summer days eating Italians on our porch and feeling everything was right in the world.
I like to make a bowl of filling and spoon in the extra as I eat the wrap!
Italian Wraps
Ingredients
1 potato torilla per serving (see post dated 19 January 2026)
4 chemical free, ripe tomatoes, sliced and cut in to quarters
several slices of brown onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, stem and seeds removed, sliced and chopped in to 1 inch lengths
2-3 tbs black olives in brine (no citric acid added), pits removed and chopped
1 medium to large dill pickle (no vinegar)(see post dated 11 April 2022 or buy pickles in a salt brine)
salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil (if possible use first pressed which comes out in the autumn)
Method
Take out a potato tortilla from the freezer to thaw.
Peel and trim a brown onion. Cut several slices and chop. Add to a bowl. Wash, cut in half and remove the seeds and stem from a green pepper; slice and cut in to one inch lengths. Slice the tomatoes and quarter. Remove the pits from the olives and chop. Chop the pickles. Add everything to the bowl, dress with salt, pepper and olive oil.
Lay the potato tortilla on a serving plate. Cut two slices of cashew nut ‘cheddar cheese’ and lay in on the lower half of the tortilla leaving space the left, right and below. Spoon the filling on top and roll it up tucking in the sides like a burrito.
Serve immediately along with the bowl of remaining filling to be spooned in to the wrap as you eat! Enjoy!!!
