They are back…the little eggplant; I can’t resist them at the FM, they look so adorable. I’ll tell you all about them in a few. First I want to tell you about the great things I get through my site. I get great free stuff to try and sometimes some adorable totally awesome gifts from my online BFFs. Yesterday was like Christmas here in this household. First I got a box full of Pomegranate juice from Pom. Delish… and then a bit later I got a package from Canada, from Jenn from Defunkt Gourmet, how adorable is that? She sent me a “thank you” letter (on a plantable seeds paper) with some teas, and a summer mix CD. I loved it. It was the coolest thing. If you don’t know who is Jenn yet, I’m sorry to say you are missing big time. She makes me laugh so hard sometimes, that I’m considering using adult dippers when I read her comments. ( Jenn giiiiirl… thank you so much for your sweet gift, you totally rock). Now back to my eggplants, the guy that sells these eggplants at the market already knows me by name. Today, I got there a little late and they were gone, so I asked him if he had some more and he told me that he kept some for me because he new I would show up. Really??? How sweet is that? Of course my husband now thinks I am having an affair with the eggplant guy. LOL By the way…have you guys checked my new Dessert site yet?

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Eggplant Harissa Crumble Cake

For the harissa tomato sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1 medium onion chopped very small
• 5 tomatoes
• 1 tsp of cumin
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp harissa
• 1/3-cup honey
• 2 tbsp tomato paste

Direction:

Take the skin of the tomatoes and cut the tomatoes into squares, in a saucepan heat the olive oil and sauté the onions and garlic. Add the chopped tomatoes, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, harissa, honey, tomato paste, salt and pepper. And let it simmer for at least 1 hour or until it turned into a thick paste. Let it cool down.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F. In a baking tray, roast 2 big eggplants or 10 baby ones with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Remember they are going to be in the oven, so you don’t want them to melt and disappear. When it’s done set them aside to cool down.

Mix the roasted eggplant with the harissa tomato sauce and reserve.

For the eggplant cake:

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 6 tbsp (100 ml) milk
• 6 tbsp (100 ml) olive oil
• 1-½ cups of flour
• 1¼ cups grated mild cheddar cheese
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• Salt and pepper

For the crunchy crumble:

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp butter
• 1cup of breadcrumbs
• 2 garlic cloves minced

Direction:

In a skillet melt the butter and sauté the minced garlic; add the breadcrumbs and sauté until the breadcrumbs begin to crisp.

Combine the eggs, milk, and olive oil in a large bowl and beat together. Add the flour and grated cheese. Season with salt and pepper stir to combine. Gently fold the baking powder. Add the eggplant mixture and fold. Transfer to the prepared baking dish top it with the crumbles and bake for 40 minutes (350F), leave to cool before removing from backing dish. Sprinkle some chopped parsley and serve.

You guys believe in the law of attraction? Well now I do…. it all started with a simple little issue in my template, and then it all fell apart. It was like a domino effect. All my electronic devices decided to gang up on me. Even my iphone broke down.  So Here’s what happened …while I was trying to fix a problem with my server, this so call “expert” technical adviser, ill advised me to reboot my site back to an older version of wordpress. I have to admit, I know very little about computer programming and when I hear the word “expert”, I really believe the person I’m talking to know’s what he or she is talking about (in most cases it’s a he rather then a she, why is that?) Anyway, to cut the story short, I lost all my posts from July including the comments. No need to say I had a total nervous break down right? So after I let him know how unhappy I was with his service, he somehow managed to restore some of my posts back. But my very last pasta salad post was forever gone with all the comments I had received for it. So I’m sorry if some of you didn’t get a reply or something. I remember somebody asked me about the red jars in my picture. They are from a store called “Cost Plus world Market“. Now everything is back to normal, and I truly hope that it will stay that way (please blue host and wordpress, have some mercy…). So as you can imagine, I didn’t cook much this week. Last night I had this simple fennel and orange salad that I love. It’s very refreshing, and very simple to make. Enjoy.

Fennel and Orange Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 big fennel bulb
• 3 oranges
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 2 lemons, juiced
• Kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Kalamata olives

Directions:

Cut the fronds from the fennel bulb and reserve some of the feathery leaves for later Slice the fennel bulb very thinly with a mandolin. Peel the oranges, remove the pith with a knife, and cut segments.

For the dressing:

Whisk together the olive oil,  lemon juice, salt and the pepper in a small bowl. Place the fennel slices, oranges slices and in a large bowl. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss together. Add the olives and some fennel fronds for decoration

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Oh Dear! I forgot how difficult (for me at least) it is to tune and tweak a template to get it to look the way you want. This past week I pulled my hair, I cried , I destroyed all the work that was done already by accident, I called the poor soul that was helping me a zillion times. He is probably changing his number right now as we speak (type). (Sorry man! Thank you for all your patience, you are an angel). Then the dammed plugins…..ahhhhhh! I could totally chew some nasty plugins and spit it out. LOL. I made the design for ‘bakerwanabe’, but some little nasty details were depending on the skills of a programmer. Oh! I wish I new html, php, etc.etc. It’s so frustrating having something in your head and not to be able to make it work.

The template is okay now, almost working, I’m still having some issues with the Meta. I have to put my password again and again all the time I change pages, it’s a mystery… Sigh*….big sigh*…but there is good out of all this chagrin. The response couldn’t be better. I want to thank all of you that came and befriended me all over again at foodbuzz, my phone biped the whole day on Thursday with foodbuzz friend requests or comments. I really appreciate the support. I even made to top 9. Thank you guys so much. So last Saturday I planned a picnic at the beach, to relax and get rid of all the bad energy. It was a night picnic, I brought some lanterns, and had my little salad with under the moon light. I don’t know about you but I think night picnics at the beach are darn romantic, the ocean waves, the moon light, the mosquitoes… well not everything is perfect. But it was worth it.

Picnic Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound short pasta
• Kosher salt for the pasta water
• 1 pound grape or cherry tomatoes
• 3/4 cup good black, kalamata olives, pitted
• 1 pound good feta cheese, medium-diced
• 1 cucumber diced
• 4 radishes shaved in a mandolin
• 1 can of garbanzo bean washed and drained
• ¼ of purple cabbage sliced very thinly

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 6 tablespoons good olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup fresh dill, chopped

Directions:

Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and place them in a large bowl. Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water (season the water is very important). Boil for 12 minutes, or according to the directions on the package. Drain well and allow to cool. Place the pasta in a bowl and add the tomatoes, olives, feta, cucumber, garbanzo beans, radishes, and cabbage. For the dressing, combine the olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, dill,  salt and pepper and whisk to combine. Pour the dressing over the pasta, and toss well.

Hi guys, I have something really sweet to introduce to you today,  it’s going to be pouring sugar and butter from all corners. My passion for cocking made me look into baking with a fresh approach. I always thought that baking was really difficult and complicated. But since I started Chefwanabe I have learned few things about baking. And now I just got to a place where I want to learn more and more. So I decide to create and run another site. Yes…I’ll run 2 sites ( am I crazy?) ….Bakerwanabe will be a dessert site where I will learn and experiment with all sorts of sugary things. I’m sure I will pull my hair from time to time but that’s how you learn right? I loaded some of my desserts to the site and this cake is my first new post there. I have also a bakerwanabe page at foodbuzz and just a few friends (pouting). If you guys could be a darling and befriend me there I would be soooooo thankful.

For the lemon Pistachios Cake click Here

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Ah Friday! Sweet Friday! The promises that I’m finally going to kick my flip-flop up and relax. Yes…. Thankfully I don’t have to kick some high heels, flipies are my friend. LOL. Do you know what is my favorite thing to do on Fridays, drive the Pacific highway, Awwwwww…. how pretty is that, all the surfers in the water waiting for a wave, the sun shinning on the sand and the smell of the ocean. Nothing can bit that. It’s lovely…and on the way there is this amazing garden store overlooking the sea.  Its pure awesomeness, moving to California was the best decision we ever made. I can’t say enough how happy we are, the weather so far is unbelievable nice. Not too hot, it feels like spring. We don’t even need air conditioner; the house is always with a nice breeze. Sometimes I even feel cold, I have to put a little cardigan. And my husband laugh hysterically when I tell him I’m cold. Yes… it is his mission in life to mock me. But I don’t hold against him. So Tonight I made this dish that totally says summer I put some candles outside in my balcony and we just had some peaceful lovely dinner sipping some wine. And talking about our day.

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Israeli Couscous with Bacon and Mussels

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of couscous
• 1 pound of mussels
• 3 slices of bacon chopped
• 1 yellow onion chopped
• 2 garlic gloves minced
• 1 teaspoon of red chili flakes
• Cherry tomatoes
• ½ pond of calamari
• 2 tablespoons of parsley chopped
• 1 cup of dry white wine
• 2 cups of chicken stock

Directions:

Soak mussels in a large bowl with cold water, changing the water twice, this helps to remove any grits. Scrub the mussels well and pull out the beards. Heat a large pan and fry the bacon until crispy, remove then bacon from the pan and set aside. Add the calamari in the bacon fat toss calamari quickly around and cook only 2-3 minutes until done. Remove calamari and set aside. Add onions, garlic, and the chili flakes. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the tomatoes, parsley, and wine and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to medium allow to simmer for 2 minutes Cook mussels for 2 more minutes shaking the pan, then remove the open mussels and set aside discard any that didn’t open. Add the Israeli couscous and the chicken stock and return to a simmer, cook until tender. Return the mussels and any juice to the pan and heat through quickly seasoning with sea salt and freshly grounded black pepper.  Serve with some more chopped parsley. Enjoy.

Garlic Bread:

Cut an italian or focaccia bread in half and spread liberally with butter then sprinkle some poppy seeds, sesame seed, salt and minced garlic.