Joanne Chang's Vegan Lowfat Chocolate Cupcakes

A V02 Exclusive Recipe!!!!!!

Joanne Chang is the owner of Flour Bakery and Myer's and Chang.  Flour Bakery is an amazing bakery and sandwich shop located on Washington Street in Boston's South End, and on Farnsworth Street in Boston's Fort Point district.  I myself frequently have lunch there!  They feature Vegan soups and dinner specials as well!  Myers & Chang is "a funky indie diner setting offering Chef/Owner Joanne Chang and Executive Chef Matthew Barros's very personal interpretation of Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai, and Vietnamese specialties."  Imagine Asian/Fusion Tapas: fantastic small plates of extraordinary asian cooking.  There are plenty of Vegetarian and Vegan options that you will adore!

Check out Joanne's pending cookbook, due in 2010:  Click for information

Joanne Chang's Vegan Lowfat Chocolate Cupcakes (or Cake!)

Yield: one 6 inch cake that serves 6-8 [or 24 cupcakes or 48 mini-cupcakes]

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
  
• ½ cup granulated sugar
  
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• ¼ teaspoon salt
  
• 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (finely ground espresso beans)
  
• 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  
• 1 cup cold water
  
• ¼ cup oil
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 2 tablespoons molasses (some kind lighter than blackstrap)
  
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional - for dusting the top)
  

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease (vegan "butter") and flour a 6-inch cake pan [or two 12-cup muffin pans, or four 12-cup mini-muffin pans].
   
2. In a medium bowl mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder and chocolate chips.  
   
3. In another bowl whisk together water, oil, vanilla extract, and molasses.  
   
4. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon until batter is smooth and homogeneous.  
5. Pour batter into prepared cake pan [cupcake tins] and bake until the cake springs back when lightly touched in the middle, about 60-65 minutes [20-25 for cupcake, or 10-12 for mini-cupcakes].  
   
6. Let cool for an hour [5 - 15 minutes for cupcakes] and invert and cool on a cooling rack.
   
7. Sprinkle with a dusting of powdered sugar and serve at room temperature.
   
8. Cake may be stored in an airtight container for 2 days.
   

Bonnie's note:  These cupcakes are fantastic, and are also available at both of Flour's bakery locations (if you don't have time to bake them, you can go pick some up)!  Be warned though, they sell out quickly!

Braised Celery Root with Chickpeas and Saffron

Living in New England and trying to use local ingredients, one ends up with a lot of root vegetables during the winter (we get ours in the Dogma box from Boston Organics).  One recurrence in our house has been Celery, or Celeriac, root.  But, what to do with these monstrosities???

This fantastic recipe was taken from Vegetarian Times magazine. It is surprisingly easy to make, with only 2 actual cooking steps.  The biggest pain is peeling the Celery root.  Once that's done, everything else is a breeze, and you'll be glad you spent the time.  This is an extremely delicious dish, is great over farrow or brown rice, and tastes better over time (fantastic leftovers)!!!!

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cups vegetable broth, low-sodium, divided
• 1 1-gram package of saffron
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped (1 and 1/2 cups)
• 4 cups celery root, peeled and diced
• 3 cups cooked chickpeas (or 2 15-oz. cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (1 Tbs)
• 2 Tbs. drained capers, optional
• 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 3 Tbs. pine nuts
• 1 Tbs. lemon juice
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions:

1. Bring 1/2 cup broth to a boil in a small saucepan.  Stir in the saffron, cover, and remove pot from heat.  Let stand 5 minutes or until saffron has softened and broth is a rich, gold color.  This will smell fantastic
2. Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat.  Add onion, and cook 7 to 9 minutes, or until soft and golden, stirring often.  Stir in remaining 1 cup vegetable broth, saffron broth mixture, celery root, chickpeas, garlic, capers, and red pepper flakes.  Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 15 minutes, or until celery root cubes are tender when pierced with tip of knife.  Stir in pine nuts and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper if desired, and sprinkle with parsley.

Bonnie and Ian's quick breakfast Smoothie!

Here's a nice simple recipe for a healthy breakfast beverage!

This is not an exact recipe, as its different every time, but the ingredients remain the same:

for 2 people:

2 Bananas

Plain or Chocolate Soymilk (we've been trying Almond milk lately, because there's just so much soy!)

1 scoop Vanilla protein powder

2 - 4 hearty scoops of Organic Creamy Peanut Butter (Teddy is great!)

Ice

Take the two bananas, and break them up into small pieces, about an inch or two long.  Put them in the blender.  Then, put in the protein powder.  Next, add the soymilk (you can try to measure out a pint in a pint glass, but I just dump in a bunch and add more if needed).  Then, add the peanut butter.  For 2 people, I like at least 3 scoops, but we love peanut butter.  Finally, add crushed ice.  

Blend for about 2 minutes until smooth.  Test with a straw, and add more soymilk or ice if needed.  

Pour, and drink.

I've found this order of ingredients to work very well.  The Peanut butter and Protein powder tend to stick to the side of the blender, so if you put in the powder before the soymilk, you can liquify it.  Putting in the peanut butter after the soymilk keeps it wet, and it doesn't stick as much.

yummy