Butternut squash risotto

The butternut squash recipe challenge this week was chosen by Rachel of Rachel Likes to Cook.

Whoa - suffering puppies and sugar cane, this squash was a challenge to peel and cut up! Gave my arm and hand quite the workout. I think I can skip my yoga this week. Maybe this month. It looked pretty in the pan however.

The risotto took longer to cook than I had anticipated and seemed to cook out the liquid pretty quickly. Of course I always try to cheat at things (not in life, just in cooking) and I wondered why I could not put more than two ladles of chicken broth in there at once. Any thoughts on that? I followed the recipe and was a good girl, however. As you can see in the photo below, I managed to use almost all my wonderful chicken stock. I used chardonnay which was the driest wine in my cabinet. Being a Reisling fan, dry whites are never - shall we say - in over-abundance in my wine bar. Also, I did not have the saffron threads so I substituted a tiny bit of ginger which I thought worked just great. The butcher where I shop could not for the life of him figure out how much two ounces of pancetta would be. I hope his significant other balances the family checkbook. I finally went through the math with him step by step (ok 16 oz is a pound, half of that is 8 oz, half of that is 4 oz, etc.) and then when he still didn't seem to have it, I just said to give me 1/4 lb. That worked for him. I think he was still counting and scratching his head when I left him. I put all of it in there because I like the taste of the pancetta. The shallots were flavorful and the freshly grated parmesan was a nice finishing touch. The recipe made a huge bowl full and I am not sure what hubs and I will do with all of it. I may have to share some with a neighbor. It was delicious and a very nice dish to go with the fall weather that is coming our way! My photos do not do justice to this dish. I was thinking. . . yes I live dangerously. . . wouldn't black olives make it look really Halloweenish!