One cookbook that I use over and over again is Rebar. If you are not familiar with Rebar it is a nice little restaurant in Victoria on Vancouver Island. I had the chance to eat there and tried their Three Sisters Burrito filled with roasted squash, pinto beans, corn and served with a mesa red sauce. It was delicious. The staff is very friendly and the place fills up fast during the week-end so expect a lineup.
Yesterday driving around my new place I found a farmer stand not too far from home. I spent $20 and came back with a box full of fresh vegetables. I had zucchinis, the best I had since a long time and decided to use them in a soup and in cupcakes. To make the cupcakes I used a really good cocoa from Epicure Selections. It's important in order to achieve a dark, deep flavor of chocolate in the cupcakes. For the 'chocolate chips I used the Special Dark from Hershey's. There is buttermilk in the batter but no need to run to the grocery, you can use plain yogurt. I had Greek yogurt on hand and it was perfect. The recipe says that it will yield 20 cupcakes but I like to have a nice round top on my cupcakes so I ended up with 17. Rebar served them with a cream cheese frosting but they are really good on their own.
It is a rainy day today in Ottawa and it was hard to take great pictures. I still did and I am not satisfied with the results but I wanted to make sure that you have a picture of the cupcakes to look at.
from Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook by Audrey Alsterburg & Wanda Urbanowicz
