cara cooks again

so my suitcases may not have gotten unpacked--ok, so i still have piles of clothes making a maze of our upstairs--but i did get back into my kitchen. and here are the highs and lows of our culinary adventures last week:

first of all i think one can never underestimate the joys of an omelet. no recipe here, but since i have reignited my love affair with trader joe's i highly recommend their light three cheese blend for absolutely everything. and fyi costco now carries gorgeous blocks of parmiganno reggiano for prices that leave you absolutely no guilt when chopping off huge chunks to snack on while you cook and drink some trader joe's reds.

and here are my unsolicited thoughts on those: last week i enjoyed one of my favorite week-night screwtop reds under $10--red truck and tried some new endcap specials-- the alexander & fitch cab-- as well as my favorite "splurge" the sebastiani cab (right at twelve bucks) which took off last year when food & wine declared it the best thing under ten bucks and then it was gone. but the new stuff inspired me to pull out the red wine glasses. i feel a disclaimer is in order as not to ruffle those real-live wine blogs and wine cellar junkies: i'm no wine connoisseur (although i did get married at a winery--isn't this a line out of an american express commercial?); i just drink what ever looks promising at trader joe's or whatever my favorite wine guy ed recommends from the reserve--who just launched his new website and anything he recommends is bound to be good and he doesn't get snooty with me when i tell him i'm not interested in spending more than ten bucks.

so other than omelettes and choochoo train banana whole wheat pancakes (thanks great grandma and grandpa fidler for the fun w&s pancake molds!) i thought i'd try to get back to some whole foods and eat lighter. i pulled out my fresh & light ws cookbook and made the zucchini 'pasta' with mint pesto for dinner with nana & papa. basically, you mandoline green & yellow squash and saute it with some cooking spray, chopped shallots and thyme then treat it like pasta with the pesto. now, it did not look like the ribbony masterpiece that my cookbook promised and although pulling out my mandoline was a thrill and papa brought some gorgeous fresh mint it seemed a bit disappointing. i loved the fresh squash, however, and think next time i'll just do a simple saute with some organic veggie stock and some fresh thyme. suggestions anyone?

but here's the winner of the week: real simple's barley risotto with asparagus and parmesan [recipe] basically, you cook the barley as you would arborio for risotto only instead of a starchy white rice you have this surprisingly nutty and chewy dish that even withstood a next- day reheat. the two-buck chuck sauvignon blanc really performed for me here and was a drinking-while-cooking wine especially since this was from march or april (mind you, i'm browsing through three months of back catalogues and magazines) and you aren't meant to simmer broth in your kitchen for fortyfive minutes with summer heat. but i'd do it again and even experiment with some dried mushrooms, peas and aha maybe this is where the squash needs to go. . .