Squash on Squash on Squash Part 1

Hamilton (the town that Colgate is in) has an amazing farmer's market every Saturday, and last week Bean and I got a little crazy with the squash. To use up our preponderance of squash, we decided to try two new recipes in which squash plays the starring role.

1) PASTA WITH ACORN SQUASH AND PANCETTA

We are both big fans of acorn squash and figured that this recipe sounded and looked pretty tasty, and that the marriage of acorn squash (which we both believe is truly maple syrup's soulmate) and pancetta was intriguing.

What Worked:

If it looks like this, it's not crispy enough.
You want those babies brown, trust us.

The pancetta. It's the bomb. I am continually amazed by the amount of 'exotic' food that Price Chopper has. The sliced pancetta we got there was so handy. We just rendered the crap out of it.


What Didn't:

To be honest, almost everything else. The first mistake was totally on us. We overcooked the squash a little bit.

These are too crispy.
However, with some more oil and maybe some salt,
 we think they would make great "french fries."

After that though, I call shenanigans. First of all, the original blog image shows the squash holding itself together, being friends with the pasta without glomming all over it, and generally looking presentable. Our pasta, however, could only be described as "glop in a wok." 

Is it possible that this is due to our lack of culinary skills? 

Why no, how silly of you to ask.

Here's the other thing. Pasta is starchy. Squash is starchy. And it's also not a sauce. So the result is a slightly dry, heavy, starchy, mushy thing with small bites of delicious crunchy pancetta. So the moral of the story is:

Their pasta + reality = our pasta
Yup. Just compared TSwift and Ke$ha to pasta.