Nick's still desperately ill; he's having his third surgery today. We're heartsick -- we're never going to hear his silly little bark again, since, if he makes it, he'll breathe through a hole in his neck the rest of his life.

As you can imagine, I'm not up to a lot of hard thinking or creative endeavor.

I did manage to put together a supper last night from stuff we had on hand that was good enough to tell you about it. Here's what I did:

I started browning and crumbling 24 ounces of ground chuck (I freeze my ground chuck in 6-ounce patties, so this was four patties) in my big skillet. Chopped a medium onion and threw it in. When the beef was browned and the onion translucent I dumped in a drained can of quartered artichoke hearts, another of mushrooms, and half a can of sliced black olives -- it wasn't one of those teeny cans; I'm guessing I used about 1/3 cup. Then I added a whole jar of Paul Newman's Vodka Pasta Sauce -- a tomato sauce with cream and Parmesan (and, one presumes, vodka) in it. Threw in a couple of crushed clove of garlic, too. Let the whole thing simmer while I cooked a serving of Dreamfield's for That Nice Boy I Married, and warmed a package of tofu shirataki for me.

Served the meat mixture over the noodles with extra Parmesan on top. It was very good, and there was a lot left over; this would probably have served five.

Assuming 5 servings, and leaving off the noodles, MasterCook says this has about : 437 Calories; 31g Fat; 30g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber

I'm going back to worrying now.