Whatever kind of pan you use, be SURE not to use salty stock. You're boiling off a lot of liquid here, and if you use heavily salted stock the risotto can be inedible.

The dominant flavor of risotto is the stock, so be sure it's good. If you use spectacular stock, your risotto is heaven; if you use garbage, your risotto might be ignored by hogs. In fact, if you use something like a really perfect lobster stock, you can get an entire meal out of nothing but shells, because it's just essence of lobster turned into a filling meal.

If you make this in a regular pan instead of a pressure-cooker, you can get a smoother, more melting texture to the rice -- a true, Italian-style risotto. But this requires just a few trifling changes. Make more, though, because if you have to stand over it for half an hour you won't want also to be cooking something else: you'll wan this to be the THING for the evening.

Optional: Consider using 50/50 olive oil and butter. This is a bad idea in a pressure-cooker, because of heat that can make the butter separate, but it's great in a pan.

A Thought: If your squash is very sweet, consider using no butter and a relatively bland oil (as opposed to olive), because it may be too sweet and need excessive salt.

Important: Once you have cooked the onion until translucent, add just the rice and cook for a few minutes, tossing regularly, THEN add the squash and so on. This helps the rice hull turn into saucy-creamy stuff.

Optional: For the first round of liquid, you should consider adding 1/2 cup dry white wine instead of stock.

Important: Keep the stock at a simmer. Adding cold stock can produce unpleasant texture effects in the rice.

Handy: Adjust the heat so that it takes about 5 minutes for each 1/2 cup of liquid to be absorbed. Then just add 1/2 cup per time.

Clever tip: if you have a ladle you like, measure out exactly how much it holds; changes are it's between 1/3 and 1/2 cup. Now calculate: if 30 minutes and 3 cups total means 1/2 cup per time and 5 minutes a time, or 1/3 cup per time and 3 1/2 minutes per time, exactly how long should your ladle take to absorb? Adjust the heat to meet that exactly, and you will not have to measure anything again -- just add one ladleful each time interval and you're good to go. So long as you remember this, you will never have to measure stock for risotto again.

Important: Risotto is almost done when the rice has just a hair too much "bite," kind of like just slightly undercooked pasta. Actually, risotto is basically turning rice into pasta, if you think about it, and using the rice-hull to make sauce. As soon as it's almost done, halve the amount of liquid you add each time and sprinkle in a little Parmesan and maybe a tiny tad of butter. Yum!

Idea: If your squash is a little harsh or bitter, use the butter but also try using 50/50 Parmesan and grated Cheddar. Don't add any Cheddar until the very end, as it will separate and get grainy, but the taste cuts across bitterness beautifully. Pecorino Romano does this too, but Cheddar is from Vermont so I always try to use it.

Suggestion: The best explanation of how to cook risotto is in Marcella Hazan, _Classic Italian Cuisine_.

Final Note: You can do this with any vegetable, but you have to think about what it takes to cook it. If you use a hard root vegetable, like a turnip, it needs to be finely minced and cooked a little in butter before it goes in. If you use something soft and delicate, like asparagus tips, it should go in about 5 minutes before the end so as not to get overcooked and nasty. And you just work from there.