Recently in No Drive-thru Category

News flash: If it’s cutesy, someone’s done it before. After a recent impulse buy of little round ring pasta, the obvious direction seemed to be simmering up some old-school Spaghettios, just with better ingredients. Not only did we discover we’ve been trumped on this one by another vegetarian blog, they made the same yuck-yuck intro. Fuck.

Regardless, we’re re-activating the playful comfort food section we call “No Drive Thru” to bring you a $5, 10-minute meal with easy to round up ingredients. The tomatoes can even be mealy, won’t matter! We’re gonna make two components of sauce for a little complexity. Watch out mommy!

Spaghettioz

(Serves 2)

2 cups Anelletti pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 large overripe heirloom tomatoes
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup vegetable stock
1/4 cup parmesan cheese (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
Basil for garnish

1. Bring a medium pot of water to boil, with a touch of salt and olive oil. Toss in the pasta and let boil to al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. In a second pot, start the first sauce component by adding the olive oil, garlic, onion and sautéing for about 2 minutes. Then roughly chop your tomatoes and add. Wait another 2 minutes and pour in the balsamic. Cook it off by cranking the heat and boiling until half the liquid cooks off. Then, using a tea strainer or something, sift out the tomato chunks (save them and set aside) leaving the liquid on high heat.

3. Add tomato sauce and stock and bring to a rolling boil. Then drop in cooked pasta just enough to bring up to piping hot temperature.

4. Toss the vinegary tomato chunks with parmesan (substitute 2 Tbs. nutritional yeast to veeg-ify) and plop on top of the soup. Season and garnish and serve.

Beverage: Yahoo and vodka.
Soundtrack: Pavement’s “No More Kings”

Leeks aren’t onions, but they’re in the onion family. Their tough-ass stocks are great for braising. After playing with leek rings, we’ve decided they’re great for frying too. Usually when we cook with much of the green part (further up the stock) we opt for methods that will help wilt it, here we tried to use most of the leek to get a variety of ring shapes.

The airy openness of such tall rings is awesome; it leaves more room for the crumbs and batter to play, and makes for large bites without risking that hot onion will shoot out of its fried exterior.

Before we declare this lord of the rings, we’ve heard tell that you can make an excellent baked onion ring using Kettle Chips. After taste-testing the shit out of their Island Jerk, the idea of Jamaican rings is lush with promise. Caribbean calamari, using thinner cuts of leek, sounds pretty good too.

Leek Rings

1. Cut your leeks into 5 or 6-inch lengths, discarding the green tips and leaving only area that will produce enclosed rings. Chop the tube into 1-inch pieces. Pull apart the layers, saving the innermost, and very small, rings for use in sauces or stock. Save the outmost rings. (If possible, try to leave rings that are 2 layers stuck together for extra crunch.)

2. Combine batter with as much beer as necessary to achieve goopy pancake batter feel.

3. Batter and fry.

4. Blot extra oil. Serve rings with dipping sauces: Harissa ketchup, horseradish veganaise and/or BBQ sauce.

This beloved finger food has largely been cursed to wander the halls of late-night Jack in the Box runs — an exodus not befitting anything so cute. We think hot peppers can be wonderful vehicles for snacks, though the Anaheim peppers of chile relleno fame are snooze-ville and Habaneros can hurt people, leaving only the Jalapeño.

So, for our latest addition to the “No Drive-Thru” haute vegan fast food menu, we veganized the Jalapeño popper. We roasted and deseeded them, stuffed them with an herbed vegan cream cheese concoction, dipped them in tempura batter and rolled them in panko crumbs. Once fried these peppies become scorching vegan cheese torpedos. Holla back y’all!

10 Jalapeño peppers
8 oz. vegan cream cheese
2 large sprigs of tarragon
1 bunch of chives
1/2 cup tempura batter
1/4 pale ale
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
2 cups canola oil

1. Roast two peppers at a time using your stovetop burner. Place your peppers directly over high heat, leaving them to sit 1-2 minutes at a time, rotating them as they blacken. Once blistering, dunk them in cold water and rub off black skin. Chop off their tops and make one long incision, pulling apart so you have one flat pepper skin. Carefully remove all seeds and set aside. Repeat.

2. Mix your cheese with chopped herbs. Using a small spoon put one large dollop on ach pepper and roll them shut.

3. In a large bowl add the beer to the tempura batter. Add more batter or beer as necessary to get a pancake batter consistency. Place bread crumbs on a deep plate and put a wok of canola oil on high heat.

4. Once oil is hot, dip the peppers in tempura making sure to shake off excess batter, then roll them in breadcrumbs. Immediately drop them in hot oil. Let fry for 3-4 minutes each or until golden brown on all sides.

5. Serve in a basket alongside some honey-mustard or homemade ketchup.