Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash Casserole

Earlier this week, I gave a whirl to doing Mark's listed recipe from last Saturday: Shrimp, Sausage, and Summer Squash Casserole. A few adaptations (since it seems I can't resist tinkering) were made.

Here's the casserole pre-oven time.

And after baking:

Notes:

• I added about 3 handfuls of kale, ripped up into smaller bites, right at the end of the "pot cooking" phase. I also added just a little bit of blackstrap molasses and a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinegar, which added a depth of flavor.
• This was very tasty. My 3.5-year-old pronounced it "Very yummy," so I could definitely give this a go again some time. I thought that it actually tasted even better the day after, cold from the fridge (and this saves the microwave from rubberizing the shrimp in your leftovers).
• Mine was a big soggier than what I had envisioned. I suppose this could be remedied by crisping the bacon seperately, removing, sauteeing the squash in the rendered fat, and then adding the bacon back in on top at the last minute. (?) Suggestions, anyone?
• I used a whole pound of shrimp, a whole pound of sausage, and 12 oz. of uncured bacon - which was cut into little pieces with my kitchen shears to cook faster. This produced a massive dish of casserole - enough to feed us easily for two meals.
• Since my sausage was (horrors!) conventional, I precooked it and drained the fat, allowing the uncured no antibiotic no hormone bacon's fat to take center stage. (Yes, I realize still excess Omega-6's from grain-fed pork, but what am I to do with no pastured or fully organic pork products sold by my nearest grocery store?) From our current stage in life, there's still probably going to be a lot of conventionally raised animals - it's a budget thing and a logistics thing; I simply haven't yet found access to quality, affordable pastured animal products. So, with any conventionally raised meats we eat, I'll usually be trimming or draining the not-really-that-great-for-us fat (it's usually too Omega-6 heavy due to being grain-raised). With any grass-fed/pastured stuff we can find, we'll eat it up! This reminds me: I should really find us a quality fish oil to offset our excess Omega-6 consumption stat.