This is a very easy and at the same time elegant dish. You can have it as a light lunch or a side dish at dinner.

Serves four.

Direction:

Preheat the oven to 450° F. Slice the eggplant to ½ inch rings. Place the eggplant rings on an oil brushed parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Let them cook in the oven, until the eggplants get dark and crispy and lose their water as much as possible. Mean while clean the mushrooms with a damp paper towel (avoid washing them with water as mushrooms absorb water and won’t be as good). Cut the mushrooms in to ½-inch slices.

Cook the mushrooms on a hot non-stick pan. Let them to release as much water as possible. Turn them after couple of minutes or you can reduce the heat and let the mushrooms to cook slower. The point is to let the mushrooms caramelise and cook through, when you feel that the pan is too dry add a drizzle of olive or vegetable oil, to the pan to get things going.

While you are waiting for the eggplant and mushrooms to cook, cut your tomato, and onion.

Then  just assemble it, a slice of eggplant, couple of onion rings, a slice of tomato, crumble of feta cheese, salt and pepper, drizzle of olive oil. You can have the mushrooms on the side and dress it up with fresh herbs like cilantro and mint, parsley works too.

I had this dish for a light lunch and also as a side dish next to steak worked for me perfectly both ways.

Enjoy,

Tags: eggplant, mushrooms, tomato, vegetarian

This is going to be a very busy September and October. My son goes to kinder garden next year and I have to register him in school by November.

In our school system, we have catchment school but if you don’t want your child to go there you can register him for any other school. You will be placed in waitlist and if they have space after registering their catchment students and then the sibling of those from outside catchment, they will register you.

There are other district programs that don’t have catchment and if you want to get into those programs you can register to the school with, I hope, no problem.

Picking a school and a program is getting harder by the minute. I know I don’t want my catchment school as they are below average on all subjects. I’ve been reading report cards online and I’m asking everyone about the school their kids go to. But I can’t really decide, one school is good in math the other in writing, one has IB program, the other French immersion.

I’m thinking more serious about IB program, do you have any information on this program? Please leave me your tips on how to pick a school. What are you criteria?

Until later,

Tags: elementary school

I love to have company, but then before they arrive I’m always running around, tidying up. It is exhausting specially if the company is over in the morning and I don’t have my husband’s help.

Couple of weeks ago in the middle of my running around, I decided , Ok I can’t almost do anything about the kids and their toys, but I can eliminate my work by keeping my kitchen ship shape all the time. I asked my friend who was over that how she does it. (Her house is always impeccable)

Here is what she said:

“I don’t bring out too many dishes, the ones I bring out in the morning I use through the day. Each time I wash them quickly and use them again.”

Although I thought this should be time consuming and I would spend all my day in the kitchen washing dishes I decided to keep this in mind and create a step by step plan to tackle this challenge and keep my kitchen clean and tidy all day long all the time.

Here is the list of things I did that helped me:

• Bring out as many dishes as you need just for breakfast
• After each meal time quickly put things away, wash the dishes and wipe the counter
• At each mealtime use the dishes already washed and in the dish rack or put them in place and then bring another set out.
• At cooking time, quickly wash the pots and pans while waiting for something to cook or boil or…
• Every night before bed put all the dishes in the dish rack away and quickly organize the counter tops

These all, seem like very simple steps, that I guess many apply in their daily life.  Well I didn’t; my work and kids were number one priority, I would just leave the kitchen as is and do other stuff until later that I had time for it. The kids still have number one priority but the kitchen is number one too. So while the kids are having a quite time after the meal or when they are doing drawing at the kitchen table I do my kitchen chores.

After trying this method, I figured that my biggest problem was dishwasher. I would bring out dishes for every meal and then load them in the dishwasher. Because I am energy conscious, I didn’t turn it on until it was full, that called for more dishes to take out. Emptying the dishwasher was another time consuming task that is out of the way. I still use dishwasher when I have a company or failed to follow my new technique thoroughly. Then I put the dishes, pots, and pans and whatever I have to wash in the dishwasher and turn in on at a quick or low energy cycle, but I wash them that day to have clean start the next day.

So far so good, it may look like I’m always in the kitchen and cleaning but in reality I’m spending less time in the kitchen and more with my family and on my work.

If you have any tips and like to complete this list please fill free to leave a comment.

Until later,

Tags: Home Organization, kitchen, organize, tidy up