Whew!!! and Whoa!!!!

Well, I'm not going to tell you how long it took for me to get the new badge affixed to the side of my blog. Suffice it to say, I worked up a sweat, and exercised my vocabulary muscles. Thank you again 266. I'm only sorry it took me so long to get this done. Now, if I could actually remember "how" I accomplished this miraculous feat, I'd be ever so delighted. Dumb luck is a wonderful thing, but I sure would like to know how to do it again.....should I ever be so lucky as to get another award. Not begging, just sayin'.

Yesterday was simply an ok day. I went out to lunch with our lunch group. I had a lovely Moroccan Chicken Flatbread sandwich with a small side salad. I didn't eat all of the flatbread, so I was pleased with myself about that. One of the women I went to lunch with suggested that since we were in the downtown area we should "pop" over to the Italian Sausage & Grocery store only a few blocks away. As Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman...."Big mistake, HUGE!" The trek through the store started out just fine. Found my favorite canned tomatoes and some lovely olive oil.....no problems yet.....turned a corner and POW! Fresh, hand made Italian sausages, Prosciutto, Pancetta, Mortadella, etc. I stopped and stared, it was useless to fight it, I simply could not. The only choice I had was to mitigate the damage I was about to do by showing a little self restraint. Only 2 garlic sausages, 3 small slabs of pancetta, and two 1# pkgs. of med hot bulk Italian sausage. Got to the checkout where we found all of the frozen stuffed pastas. I resisted the temptation to buy one bag of each, and settled on a tri colored tortellini for when our granddaughter visits, and a bag of chicken ravioli. That's about the very best I have ever done in an ethnic grocery store. In some respects I was quite pleased with the self restraint I showed, but in truth, I was completely off base. I promise to use these ingredients judiciously, and only for special occasions. I just got a new Food Saver vacuum sealer, so I sealed everything up nice and tight, that way it will keep longer, and I won't be tempted to pull something out once a week "to keep it from getting freezer burn".

I was kinda smart with dinner. I did use one of the bottled tomato basil sauces I bought with the chicken breasts I had already thawed out. Not really a chicken parm, but close enough to satisfy my Italian craving. I gotta stay away from that part of town. Unfortunately, it is right south of the Farmers' Market area, so now that I know where it is, I'm going to have to monitor myself. Perhaps house arrest would work.