Timballo is an Italian dish that is made up of pasta, rice or potatoes and often includes meat, cheese or fish. I liked the look of it so I thought I would give it a try.
As I started to look at the Timballo recipe in detail, I realized that this dish could easily be made from bits and pieces from my pantry and fridge. Things like the last bits of various shapes and sizes of dry pasta, too much to throw out and not enough for a meal. I know my pantry has any number of bags with just a little bit of dry pasta in each.
The same goes for many of the remaining ingredients, most of us have a (partial) jar of pesto and I usually have a (partial) jar of roasted red peppers.
You may even have fresh vegetables, whether baby spinach, or Swiss Chard, and of course who doesn’t have frozen peas? So the fresh ingredients could easily also be part of your refrigerator staples. Pecorino-Romano, Parmesan and even mozzarella cheeses are pretty common in my fridge.
To help things along, I happened to have made Sauce Bolognese during the week and had some left over. I used this as my base pasta layer then essentially did a mini-clean of my pantry and fridge. You could also use left-over spaghetti meat sauce, or a store bought red sauce.
So, in my opinion, in the end, this extravagant multi-layered Italian dish was a help to me as it used up all the little quantities of pantry and fridge staples and created a delightful and delicious dish!
