Carrots, Carrots and Sweet, Sweet Sleep........

Hey Everyone! So happy to be here blogging, sitting on the floor of my bedroom while sweet Chloe sleeps on our bed. Her dad, Mark, helps us on Wednesday nights, bless him. Last night while I was dozing off with Jake I was pondering a blog entry, fearful that Joel would be too busy to make time. I knew I had to come up with something entertaining in order to distract you guys from realizing that I wasn’t talking about food. I started thinking about putting Jake to sleep. It’s always fun around our house at bedtime as Jake doesn’t like to sleep by himself. There's usually a trade off on who gets to doze off with him while the other finishes housework, reads, watches tv, scans facebook, catches up on sports, etc. Often, I thrill at the opportunity to snuggle into bed with Jake at 8:30 or 9, whenever, fall into slumber and get a good night’s sleep. Other times, I love the opportunity to finish some tidying in the casa and settle into a good show. I think Joel feels the same way. Well, of course, now with the Violet Crown Supper Club, this random pleasure is not as eagerly anticipated. Every other Tuesday and Wednesday, we desperately need for him to just go to sleep so we can both put in another three hours of work. Sadly, one of us (me) has to fall asleep then reawaken to attempt to keep working. The problem is that Jake doesn’t fall asleep easily and often, after I sneak out of the bed, he comes and finds me. Last night was one of these nights. I had woken back up and was in the kitchen washing dishes when Jake came in and said he couldn’t get to sleep. I tuned in some Chet Baker on Pandora, crawled back into the soft sheets and cuddled into him, his head close to mine. He told me, “Mom, I really want to go to sleep so you can help dad, but I just can’t”. Darn. I relaxed into it and fell asleep for the rest of the night. So, I got a good night’s sleep. Needless to say, that whole notion of co-sleeping simply didn’t anticipate the Violet Crown Supper Club nights. We went to the library today to pickup books on cd. Jake has agreed to try to fall asleep to these. I’ll keep you updated. The good news is, that when I woke up this morning, Joel was working on the following, so with that said………heeeeeerrrrrreeeee’s Joel!

I would like to thank all of you guys for the tremendous support. Without you, our wonderful home would be foreclosed upon. This really does help the cause and I hope you are enjoying it as well. It will be obvious this week that I bought a really big bag of carrots. They show up all over this menu, but it’s ok because carrots are good for you. Keep in mind, these items have not been made yet and I am mostly speaking in conjecture. Curveballs could happen tonight when I finish the prep, but lately, things have gotten more consistent. I have actually started taking notes and writing recipes. It’s funny how that helps.

SNAX

The Truffled White Bean Dip makes a return and I am excited about it. It came out so good last time. Great Northern Beans pureed with truffle oil, roasted garlic, carmelized onions and parsley. It could be tasty on a toasted baguette or underneath a grilled chicken breast or pork loin. We also have the Sundried Tomato Feta Dip with fresh basil. If you were buying this from Tom’s Tabooleh it would be called hummus, but I hate bastardizing that term. Hummus is hummus. And speaking of, we are also selling the Roasted Garlic Hummus. I may have just bastardized it myself by including the roasted garlic part, but it sounds cool. It is a basic hummus recipe but I do use roasted garlic instead of fresh. It allows me to amp up the garlic flavor without the harshness that comes from using fresh garlic. I also promise to never put cumin in hummus or make a black bean hummus (Joanna inserts that she wishes for a roasted pepper hummus and would love a black bean hummus). That is so honkey. The Cranberry Almond Chicken Salad is back as well. I will take it off the menu when it stops selling out, but so far it has been a very popular item. One of Joanna’s favorite snax is topping an olive tapenade with goat cheese. This one is for her. It is a Kalamata Olive Tapenade with sundried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and basil. Maybe we should call it the marriage counseling tapenade because it is an obvious attempt to get in her good graces. I hope she is not offended that it came out looking like dogfood. The plan may backfire. Next time I will use a Spanish olive in there as well to get some color and offset the kalamata. The sweetness of the sundried tomatoes and the balsamic soften the saltiness of the olives and it tastes really good. Go ahead and pickup the baguette and goat cheese. I am also pickling some peppers that Annie gave us. I have no idea what kind of peppers they are or how hot they are, but they sure are pretty. We will find out tonight.

SOUPS

The Carrot Ginger Soup was requested and is back. Since I was cooking white beans, I decided to make a White Bean Soup spiked with roasted garlic. I love bean soups and this is one of my favorites. I wish it had some shredded braised pork in it but I kept it vegetarian. I also started using Braggs Liquid aminos in our homemade veg stock instead of soy. Now our soups are more “gluten-free” friendly. The final soup is an experiment resulting from an ordering error with the produce company. I have tons of nappa cabbage. I love sweet and sour soup from Chinese restaurants and this is the inspiration for the Sweet and Sour Vegetable Soup. I plan on making a sweet soy-ginger broth spiked with rice wine vinegar and filled with nappa, crimini mushrooms, scallions, and carrots. It should not suck.

SIDES

The White Beans and Greens are back. These were so wonderful last time, I just didn’t make enough. Apple Cider braised red chard with great northern beans and carmelized onions. This is one of my favorite things to eat and it is very, very healthy. The Whole Wheat Orzo with a Basil Walnut Pesto is a new one. Roasted Peppers and fresh mozzarella round out this dish. Another pasta dish we have is the SpagheThai. Whole Wheat Noodles tossed with a spicy sesame ginger garlic sauce inspired by some of the thai dishes I have eaten. I am a white-boy Jew from Texas so this could hardly be considered authentic, but it is good. I am always very shy about cooking ethnic dishes and feel like a poser. But I have been reading Eat Me, the book by Kenny Shopsin who has the eccentric diner in NY. He has given me the confidence to cook what I want regardless of rules and then call it whatever I want. As long as it tastes good to me, I have no problems selling it. We debut our first salad this week with the Asian Salad, which is similar to a popular dish we served at a café I worked at in Colorado. Nappa Cabbage with shredded carrots, cilantro, scallions, sweet almonds, crispy wontons, and a tangerine miso vinaigrette. The final side is the Carrot Cakes with a thai chili sauce. These are a play on crab cakes but use pureed carrots instead. I was undecided on whether to pre-grill them for you guys or sell them uncooked. I went with the uncooked so you could get maximum freshness and flavor. Cook them just as you would a crab cake. Heat oil in a skillet over med-high heat and brown both sides until well heated through the middle.

Hope to see you guys on Thursday. If you ever have any questions, please feel free to email us at violetcrownsupperclub@gmail.com and we will respond as quickly as possible. Thanks again.

Crabby Patties and One Night Stands

O.K. guys this thing is gonna be fast and furious, much like life after school starts. Joel wants me to start this off by explaining that last week's blog was written but never posted. I really feel bad about this as it's sitting on my computer desktop, a waste of Joel's time. He wanted to make sure you all knew his intentions for the delicious butter that we all know and love which normally comes with the veggies (patterned after the ever famous "love veggies" from The Magnolia Cafe). He knew that it would be inappropriate to call it the Love Butter (a blatant ripoff) and he also knew that the butter is also a bit naughty as we are always trying to be good and stay away from fattening and dairy type products. So, in response to those thoughts, he called it the "one-night-stand butter". Something you want to spend a fun evening with, but not stay with permanently. It's a good thing that butter and I have nothing in common.
You are all probably wondering "what the hell is Spongebob doing on this blog?". Upon Jake's request, Joel created a new hamburger that we officially call the "Crabby Patty". I have to say that something magical is going on with these burgers. He's got a steak rub that has officially nudged Dirty's into 2nd place on the list. I'm now living with the best hamburger maker in Austin, hell yeah! We crave "crabby patties" on a weekly basis and I'm sure that Ft. Worth will be exposed to these miracles this weekend.
We had a few other cooking experiences over the last few weeks. I had the opportunity to bake in the new kitchen for the first time and what a difference it made having prep tables and a nice big oven. I made what has officially been called "my best cookies ever", a double-chip chocolate-chip cookie cooked to all sorts of perfection and a couple of loaves of bread that were tasty but a little thick, the dough never did rise appropriately. I am thinking that a sourdough starter is in my future and I'm thinking all you bakers will not only get a bit of it, you will also be expected to drop by and feed that baby when I'm out of town.
O.K. guys, enough of my blathering, let's get down to the menu, and hopefully Joel will give you some insight into his offerings some bright and early morning this week. I'll encourage him to pop out some descriptions. I'm so sorry, I know he's better at all this tasty, yummy, fun description of foods.

SOUP
We have a repeat of the Spinach Soup, but he's still wavering on the creme fraiche, I'm working on him. He's also got a Cauliflower Soup with Gouda and on the tail end, a Creamy Crimini Mushroom soup. That Creamy Crimini is really calling my name, I'm sure it will be yelling it as it walks out the door in Sonja's bag......poor me, I never get to eat the food.

SNAX
He's making a favorite of mine, Roasted Cauliflower and Sweet Peppers with coriander and cumin. This recipe if from the Modern Vegetarian and I think it's one of the best ways to serve cauliflower. Anybody have any favorite recipes for cauliflower, please share. There's also Balsamic Roasted Eggplant with basil, mint and feta and Israeli Couscous with sundried tomatoes, basil, green onion and feta. The next two are repeats of some really delicious items. The Red Quinoi with corn, tomato, cilantro and lime is not only delicious and refreshing, it's also super healthy. The "Best Beans" are pinto beans seasoned with jalapenos, corn, roasted peppers and tomatoes. I just asked Joel if he was adding chorizo to the "Best Beans" as it's listed on the menu AND his response was..... "it was too expensive at Central Market, HEB was reasonable but there was way too much lips and anus (ick) and Costco didn't carry it". Geez. I don't think I'll be eating chorizo anytime soon (and that had just become my favorite taco). The "Best Beans" are officially vegetarian.

SNAX
Well, what can I say, let's just think about this one. What are some of the yummiest things in the world that I never get to eat because we sell out every time? There's the Cranberry Almond Chicken Salad, which we are gonna keep selling this until there is some left over. There is the ever famous, all-time favorite of mine, Mom's Insulted Tuna Salad and not to be undersold, the addicting Chipotle Shrimp and Corn Salad. If you haven't had the shrimp dip, get here early. Joel is mixing it up with some Baba Ghanouj this week. Yummy.

SPICES
Yes, you read that right, not dressings, spices. Joel has decided to flirt up all those husbands out there with a little gift he has, the amazing ability to mix all kinds of interesting things together to make the best damn rubs evah! He's got a Chile Rub, a Tejas Rub, a Sweet Pork and Chicken Rub and the famous Cowboy Steak Rub. He's got something called "Da Rub" which I think might be linked to the Crabby Patties, not sure. He's saying he's not sure if the rubs will happen, so if you are of the prayin' type, get down on those knees and hallelujah, start prayin' for the rubs.

Alright guys, sorry you got a post from me, but what the heck, Joel's busy. I've got to go meet the teacher, so I'm off and I can't wait to see all ya'll on Thursday. Now that school has started back we are cutting the VCSC lounge time back a bit, homework and early bedtimes prevail. Maybe we will have a little VCSC weekend bbq. Soon, I promise.