Epic Timpano

**** Warning this is the most unhealthy and unpaleo meal ever! It is also Epic****

I love Food in My Beard. He makes some of the most creative and original dishes I’ve ever read about. Every recipe of his that I’ve tried was a success (try the cheese steak!). I read this recipe a while back and have always wanted to eat it. The lovely Lucy reminded me of it recently. After some planning T and I came up with our version of that Epic Timpano. Since it contains so many elements this is more of a documentation of what we did rather than a recipe.

So many carbalicious treats. It’s been a long time since we’ve bought this much packaged food.

T made an amazing alfredo sauce using a béchamel sauce from the ‘Joy of Cooking’.

Add penne and try not to eat it all before you make the rest of the elements.

                   
T also washed ALL the dishes, epic meals means epic dishes! I think our kitchen would be buried right now if it wasn’t for him. Maya grated and cut all our cheese, mmm cheese.

Again try not to eat it all before you assemble all the parts.

My elements started with some chicken parmesan. I used chicken thighs because that’s just smart. When you pound them out make sure you cover them with parchment paper, otherwise you’ll be cleaning chicken pieces off your light fixtures. (true story)

Once they were thin I breaded them with parmesan and panko. I added some garlic powder, thyme, and oregano to the panko.

After I breaded them I fried them up in a pan and set them aside to cool.

Then there came a pesto sauce with basil, garlic, olive oil, and more parmesan cheese. We used dinosaur pasta for the pesto. We could only find dino pasta in mac’n’cheese boxes so we just put the cheese aside. T needed me to help decipher what some of the shapes were. But we eventually identified all the Dinosaurs

We cooked up some cheese ravioli and Italian sausages and set them aside to cool. T cooked up some cheese sticks in the oven. We never eat cheese sticks so we failed there. I think we should have fried them but the thought was baking would keep them less greasy. They all melted together and made a large breading and cheese mess. I was only able to salvage a few for the timpano. The rest went to some very happy dogs.

Once everything was cooked the fun part could begin. I used FIMB’s idea of a disposable tin. I lined it with store bought pastry dough. Trust me making your own pastry dough is a terrible lesson in futility. Store bought is easy and makes me happy.

We put in the alfredo first and patted it down into the bowl. Then the sausage went in next. Then the ravioli went on top of that.

The dino pesto went on top of the ravioli. We places a few failed mozzarella sticks down with some sliced fresh mozzarella too.

Last went the chicken parmesan.

Finally, I sealed the whole thing up in more pastry dough. Make sure to press down each layer firmly to keep out pockets of air.

I baked it at 350 for 1.5 hours, let it sit for about 20 minutes before cutting.

T was in charge of the Epic flip. This thing weighed about 20 pounds. I had to get a bathroom scale out to weigh it because my kitchen scale couldn’t do the job. Flipping something so big is not an easy task. We all held our breath and waited. T did a flawless job!

Double thumbs up for a job well done.

Look at this monster! It is important to let it sit a bit before flipping and cutting so it will stay together. I cut one a little early and it wanted to collapse.

It’s like Italian Inception. Layers in layers!

We had to call in some reinforcements to eat this monster meal.

Ryan does not look happy about this daunting task.

Oh my! I ate every bit of this and it was good!

If that wasn’t enough, Karen made these cute blueberry tarts for dessert. Aren’t they adorable?

We had 6 people eating this and still didn’t finish half. It was so good! If you are looking for a truly epic meal I highly suggest this one.

We all then died and went to carb heaven.