Squash Casserole . . . Sort-Of

Earlier today I had some gorgeous zucchini in my fridge. It was from the farmer's market so it was fresh, luscious and impeccably healthy. There was only one problem with it; I had no interest in eating it. Honestly, I was really just craving a big bowl of pasta with meat sauce. But, I decided it's probably a sin to let farmer's market produce wither in the fridge uneaten, so I set about trying to find a way to make it palatable.

Now, Deliverance makes a mean squash casserole and by "mean" I mean I could eat the entire pan of it myself, given half the chance. I called her up and asked the basic ingredients. She said: "squash, cooked rice, onion, garlic, green chile, bacon and cream of mushroom soup." Great, I thought! Let's make this thing! Then I realized I had another problem: I didn't have any green chile or cream of mushroom soup. I thought about making a white sauce to substitute for the soup, but I didn't have any milk or cream.

Oh well! Time to wing it!

Here are the instructions for my version. Amounts of ingredients are approximate, since I wasn't measuring anything.

Five minutes before your piano lesson, boil water and pour it over the collection of rice that you found in little baggies in your cupboard. Spill rice all over stove. Leave it there and go teach your lesson. By the time your lesson is over, the rice will be nice and cooked. If it isn't, boil it for a while, then drain.

Semi-defrost your bacon. Claw at the solid mass of it until you get three slices off . Cut them into chunks and brown them in a skillet. Remove bacon and try not to eat all of it. Pour off most of the bacon fat (save it!) and in the same pan, throw the not-too-sad remains of half an onion, chopped, along with two minced garlic cloves. Remember that you have some mild shoshito peppers in the fridge (ah, farmer's market) and chop those up and add them to the onions. Once the veggies are brown, remove them from the skillet. Add two tablespoons of bacon fat back to the skillet, along with two tablespoons of flour. Whisk and cook until golden. then add one cup of chicken broth and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick. Then whisk in the 1/4 cup of cream cheese that came with a bagel you got the other day. Slice your squash and mix all the veggies and the rice together in a casserole dish. Grate 1/2 cup manchego cheese into the mix. Grind lots of pepper and salt over everything, then pour the sauce over it and mix it up again. Dot the top with bacon and grate some Parmesan cheese over it (you used up all the manchego already). Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the squash is tender.

This was really good, but if I were to make it again I would make a larger amount of sauce; the casserole wasn't dry, but it could have been better with more goo.