?I?m wide awake, wide awake. I?m not sleeping.?

I stayed home today with the bambino. I don’t know what kind of crud is going around, but he’s been fighting something for a few days now. I would’ve stayed home with him yesterday, but most of our department was at a meeting outside the office for awhile, and Katie went home sick. It was an okay day…Once Jay got home from work, I popped out to the grocery store. This weekend is supposed to be frigid, and I’m probably not going to want to go out much. It was another stocking up trip:

A pound of the ground sirloin was going to be used for tonight’s dinner. More on that in a bit. Dairy. etc.:

Yes, I got more Fage. The Athenos wasn’t nearly as good. I suppose if you like tart Greek yogurt, it would be okay, but I don’t. It’s one reason I went nuts for Chobani, and later Fage. I desperately need to restock my supply of butter. At one time, I had 8 lbs. of it in my freezer…I’m down to 2 1/2 now. I found it semi-amusing that the name brand stuff was cheaper than the store brand. No matter. If I could afford it, I’d have nothing but Organic Valley salted & unsalted butter in my freezer.

Pantry items:

Hy-Vee finally restocked their bulk hazelnuts, so I can make some hazelnut biscotti over the weekend (although I’ll run into the same issue as when I made the almond stuff, and I’m going to do the bulk of the mixing with my hands, since my Kitchen Aid fund has now been depleted). Yum. the 2 jars of Amy’s Marinara set me back $14, but it’s the smoothest marinara I’ve ever had from a jar. I dislike a lot of chunks in certain things, and tomato sauce is one of them. I opened one jar this evening for the Italian Pot Pie I made:

I’ll share the recipe at some point this weekend. I’ve made them before but it’s probably been about a year. I had to go through quite a few back issues of Everyday Food before I found it. I changed it this time–Instead of using individual ramekins, I just made a larger pot pie:

I made the mistake of thinking that I could spread a chunk of the dough out once I dropped it onto the meat mixture.  No go. The larger biscuit there towards the bottom of the dish is the result of me flouring my hands & stretching it out somewhat before I plopped it down. The next time I make this, I’ll just do that with the entire ball of dough, or I’ll actually roll it out a bit. Either way, it was tasty:

And there are enough in the way of leftovers that Jay & I both can take lunch tomorrow.

And on that note, I will be heading to bed now…I wanted to be in bed by 9, but forces prevented me from getting there as planned. And not only was I home tending to the sick bambino, but I was also battling some insomnia last night myself…I couldn’t fall asleep until about 11, woke up at midnight, didn’t get back to sleep until about 3, was up at 5, then again at 7, and I’ve been going ever since! I will toss out a friendly reminder regarding my giveaway of a make-your-own-6-spice-set of spices courtesy of the fine folks at Spices Inc. You have until noon CST on Monday, December 13th to create your set!