Iron Chef Georgia-Battle Squash

I still remember the first time I ever watched the show Iron Chef...sitting on Beth and Steve's couch in Montclair, NJ-amazed.  It was almost the craziest show I had seen at the time.  (I'm not talking about the American version either, but the full fledged Japanese import version.)  If you are unfamiliar with the show two chefs battle to create 5 or 6 dishes in an hour with a specially picked out ingredient.  In the Japan version the "secret" ingredients vary from things like eel, star fruit, you know, the kind of stuff you would buy at the Buford Highway Farmer's Market.  It's a real hoot to watch and I sort of miss the old over the top version of the show (which has been replaced on foodtv by Iron Chef America.)

I decided to have my own sort of "Iron Chef" this summer with some of the garden produce (which I am realizing fairly quickly that I will have plenty of.)

I have gathered about 4 squash casserole recipes and hope to try them in the next couple of months (until we get tired of them-which may come sooner than later.)  First up was Uncle Bubba's Cheesy Squash Casserole-courtesy of Paula Dean's brother.  Not really on my current diet plan, but paired with grilled chicken and a salad not a bad meal.  The recipe is located here and the only adaptations I made were to add around a cup of sliced mushrooms (that I needed to use up) and to add about 1/4 cup of mayo based on some reviews in the comment section on the website (because cheesy, buttery wasn't enough-adding mayo just makes it better!)
I started with the veggie ingredients:

I sauteed them according to the recipe and measured out the rest of the items:

Now in my haste to cook, measure and remember to take pictures for the blog I forgot to drain the veggies before adding them to the cheese/sour cream mixture.  Now, the first time we ate it I would say it did have a bit more liquid than I normally would have liked for a casserole, but upon re-heating (it makes a LOT for two people) it really firmed up.  So my advice would be maybe-partially drain?  Here is the finished product:

I will rate it three out of four squash blossoms (which will be the judging system for future squash dishes.)  It was tasty but lacked that extra "pow" it needed to give it 4 blossoms.  By the third time we ate it, it lost something.  Possibly once you have had squash casserole 3 times in 3 days it always loses something? 

Week one of garden harvesting yielded 16 ea. yellow crookneck squash.  I can see 6 out there that need to be picked now.  I think I'll wait a week before trying casserole #2.