RESTAURANT REVIEW - Biscuits + Groovy, Austin, TX

Biscuits + Groovy
Facebook Page
5015 Duval St (at 51st St. and Duval, next door to Flightpath Coffee, Arabic Bazaar, and The Peddler bike shop)
Austin, TX 78751
(512) 804-8285
M-F 9am-2pm, Sat-Sun 8:30am-2pm, Fri-Sat 7pm-2am


I first heard about Biscuits + Groovy when they ran a special on Groupon. Upon finding out that they could make practically everything on the menu vegan, I was so excited that I had to go there *that day*, before my Groupon was even available.

One very important thing of which to take note - Biscuits + Groovy is located on Duval STREET. If you just type "Duval" into Google Maps, you might end up with Duval ROAD, which is in a completely different part of town. If you then drive to Duval Rd, I guarantee that you will not find any food trailers at all, especially shiny silver ones with vegan biscuits. (Go on, ask me how I know.) *facepalm*

When I finally got to Duval St, I found the trailer right next door to The Peddler bike shop (and, for reference, across the street from the cheapest gas in the entire city of Austin. You're welcome.)



Owner Jon Lach is a complete sweetheart; very friendly and obviously excited about his business. He's also vegan, and is really informative about all of his food (and the fact that just about anything can be made vegan). He'll gladly tell you about upcoming special dishes he's planning, and can help you make up your mind if you can't decide what you want. On my first visit, I ordered The Donna Summer - vegan biscuits smothered with vegan cream gravy, vegan sausage, vegan cheese, and tofu scramble.



While the biscuits weren't *quite* as flaky as I would have like, the gravy was really tasty, and the sausage, cheese, and tofu scramble rounded out the dish nicely. I was pretty hungry, so I was able to eat the entire dish, but my boyfriend Mark could only finish a little over half of his, and took the rest home.

On my second visit (yay, Groupon!), I got The Aretha Franklin - vegan biscuits smothered with vegan cream gravy, vegan sausage, vegan cheese, and vegan bacon. I also had a delicious fruit smoothie from Flightpath Coffee (which is only 3 doors down from the Biscuits + Groovy trailer).



The Aretha Franklin was similar to the Donna Summer, though I think I slightly prefer the tofu scramble to the vegan bacon. When I went, there were two picnic tables at which to sit (which I hear that Jon made himself!), and one (or perhaps both - my memory isn't great) had large umbrellas for shade. Even with the shade, it was still hot, so Mark and I walked over to Flightpath and sat on the patio in front to drink our beverages (he had a mocha) and eat our food. I hear that Jon has installed some better seating coverage, so I'll bet it's even shadier now.

Besides having awesome food, Biscuits + Groovy also does a "Mix Tape Trade" - just bring in a mix CD and get someone else's! Bring it back when you're done listening to it, and you can get yet another. They also are about to start Biscuits + Movies (every Saturday night starting 7/16/11), which sounds like it'll be a blast. I voted for "Blues Brothers" for the first night, and suggested The Wizard of Speed and Time as a possibility for a future date.

I can't wait to go back to Biscuits + Groovy. I think I might try for The Burrito next time - they say you can get anything on the menu in it, and the possibilities are mind-boggling!

RECIPE REVIEW - General Tao's Tofu

General Tao's Tofu
from VegWeb, written by rubybean77
(Also, if you click on the above link, you can see the instructional video posted below the recipe!)

Ingredients:

1 (12 ounce) box firm tofu, in 1" cubes (frozen and thawed, if desired)
1 egg equivalent (e.g., EnerG Egg Replacer), prepared
3 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons water, divided
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon cornstarch, divided
vegetable oil for frying + 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
3 green onions, chopped
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2/3 cup vegetable stock
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon sherry, optional
red pepper, to taste
steamed broccoli, to serve

Directions:

1. Mix the egg replacer as specified on the box and add an additional 3 tablespoons water. Dip tofu in egg replacer mixture and coat completely. Sprinkle 3/4 cup cornstarch over tofu and coat completely. Watch out that the cornstarch doesn't clump up at the bottom of the bowl.

2. Heat oil in pan and fry tofu pieces until golden. Drain oil. Heat 3 tablespoons vegetable oil in pan on medium heat. Add green onions, ginger, and garlic; cook for about 2 minutes. Be careful not to burn garlic.

3. Add vegetable stock, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, sherry, and red pepper.

4. Mix 2 tablespoons water with 1 tablespoon cornstarch and pour into mixture stirring well. Add fried tofu and coat evenly.

Serve immediately with steamed broccoli over your choice of rice.



First, please pardon the fact that there are no pictures for this recipe. My boyfriend and I were really hungry and ate all of it before I could grab my camera. Since I'm going to make it again, I promise to get pictures next time. Cross my heart and hope to run out of chocolate. (Or something.)

I had a few slight issues with this recipe, but they were all entirely my fault and can be fixed the next time I make this. There *will* be a next time, because even with the problems, it was still tasty.

I'll admit; I'm usually a bit lazy with my cooking. First, I mixed up the "egg" mixture in a container, put the tofu pieces in it and stirred them around some to make sure they were coated, then just started sprinkling the corn starch directly onto the tofu. Luckily, I'd only used a little less than half of the corn starch when I realized that the bottom of the container bore a striking resemblance to Elmer's glue, so I went ahead and put the tofu pieces into the heated, oiled pan, let them cook for a very short while, then sprinkled the remaining cornstarch over the tofu pieces in small batches, stirring in between sprinkling.

Second, instead of preparing the sauce in a separate pan, I added all of the ingredients into the same pan with the fried tofu. This created tofu that was probably not nearly as crispy as intended (mine was a smidge soggy), but it was still edible.

My last problem stemmed from the fact that I had no broccoli, but I *did* have cauliflower. Instead of steaming the cauliflower while I was making the rest of the recipe (which would have been the smart thing to do), I forgot about it until after everything else was ready. I cut up some of the cauliflower, piled it all into my giant coffee mug/bowl-thing, added a bit of water, and microwaved it for about 3 minutes. This actually didn't cook it much at all, so I had fairly crunchy cauliflower to go with my somewhat soggy tofu. Next time, I'll shoot for the other way around.

Since I didn't have any veggie broth, I put 3/4 cup water, a handful of kale, about 1/3 of a carrot, a couple shakes of salt, and a squirt or two of soy sauce into my Blendtec blender, and used that. I also decided not to use as much sugar as the recipe calls for, and instead just sprinkled some sucanat over the top of everything in the pan (I didn't measure, but if I had to guess, I'd say I used less than 1/8 of a cup). Also, for the "red pepper", I diced one red serrano pepper, which provided a really nice spice that didn't go overboard.

Overall, it was quite tasty, and when I make it next time, I won't take the "shortcuts" I used this time.

Happy Pi Day Fruit Pie

Happy Pi Day! (It's 3.14 - get it?) In honor of this lovely geeky holiday, my boyfriend, Mark and I had pizza for lunch, and I made a lovely fruit pie with crumb topping for desert. Since we're on a very tight budget (stupid gas prices), we couldn't make the trip to Wheatsville (my favorite co-op) and chose to go to Target just down the street from our apartment. I picked up a crumb pie crust (Keebler, I think), which is vegan but unfortunately has partially hydrogenated oil in it. Oh, well; one time thing. We also picked up another big bag of frozen strawberries, mangoes, and pineapple that we also use pretty much daily for fruit smoothies. I added some raisins to bulk it out a bit (and because Mark *loves* raisins). With 1/3 cup of sucanat, several good shakes of cinnamon, several good squirts of agave nectar, and 2 tablespoons of corn starch, I had a tasty filling. I used the crumb topping from Lois Dieterly's Fall Harvest Pie from "Sinfully Vegan" - 1/4 cup canola oil, 1/3 cup sucanat, and 1/3 cup whole wheat flour.



It didn't stay in pi(e) form quite as well as I would have liked when sliced, but it still tasted great!

Brussels Sprouts with Stuffed Mushrooms, Homemade Vegan Sushi, and "Ice Cream"

Today was quite the day for yummy homemade vegan meals. For lunch, my boyfriend, Mark, started with a few recipes online and improvised from there. He made steamed brussels sprouts and stuffed mushrooms, and then made some garlic toast with rosemary and oregano and roasted pumpkin seeds. The original mushroom recipe called for butter (for which he substituted Earth Balance), Worcestershire sauce (for which he substituted a mixture of soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, 1 clove of garlic, and molasses), and 1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese (for which he substituted about 1/3 cup Wayfare Foods We Can't Say It's Cheese Hickory-Smoked Cheddar-Style Spread.) He also added just a bit of fresh tomato, and put the stuffed mushrooms in the fridge for 20 minutes or so before cooking them. These mushrooms were absolutely AMAZING! Mark says that they were quite interesting to prepare, since stuffing them made them top heavy and they tended to try to escape. The brussels sprouts were steamed with a clove of garlic and some lemon juice in the water, and then drizzled with salted garlic Earth Balance. The pumpkin seeds were done using this recipe, although Mark added some Earth Balance to the canola oil, and decided after the fact that just Earth Balance would have been better. He also sprinkled a tiny bit of garlic salt on them before roasting them.




For dinner, it was my turn! I recently restocked on sushi rice from the bulk section of Wheatsville Co-Op, and still had a packet of nori. While the rice cooked, I shredded a carrot, chopped a handful of fresh spinach and a few pieces of Tofurky jerky (the "wishstix" from the Tofurky feast), and grabbed some avocado, soy sauce, and sesame seeds (as well as some chili sauce and the Wayfare Foods cheese that I ended up not using).



My sushi roll contained spinach, carrot, avocado, and sesame seeds (sprinkled inside the roll since doing the rice on the outside makes a giant mess!)



Mark's roll had spinach, carrot, Tofurky jerky, sesame seeds, and some leftover roasted pumpkin seeds with soy sauce squirted inside the roll on the carrot.



We had enough rice left over for one more roll, so we decided to slice up half of a kiwi and about 1/3 of a banana and make a "desert" roll (we added sesame seeds to this as well). It wasn't as sweet as we'd hoped; some fresh strawberries would have gone well, but all we had were a few frozen ones).



Mark got all mathematical and cut every piece in half, starting in the middle.



Here's Mark's finished roll -



Here's mine -



Since the "desert" roll really wasn't all that sweet, we decided to make a real desert, but we didn't quite know what we wanted. In the past, I've made "ice cream" by putting a frozen banana in the food processor with a tiny bit of sugar and a bit of soy milk. My current bunch of bananas isn't yet ripe, so I haven't frozen them. Mark suggested we slice up the remaining 2/3 of the banana we'd used for the sushi roll and top it with some form of homemade ice cream and chocolate sauce. While he sliced the banana, I improvised on the sauce and the ice cream. I put about 14 ounces of ice, 4 tablespoons of soymilk powder, about 2 tablespoons of evaporated cane juice, and a tiny splash of vanilla extract into my Blend-Tec blender. For the sauce, I put 3 wedges of Ibarra chocolate with just enough water and soymilk powder to cover the bottom of the pan. In order to thicken it up a bit, Mark added some extra soymilk powder, evaporated cane juice, and cocoa powder. When we put the "ice cream" over the bananas, it was a slightly soft, but overall very nice consistency. However, once we added the chocolate sauce (and a couple of thawed strawberries) to the dishes, the ice cream started to melt rapidly. By the time I sat down to eat mine, it was basically ice cream soup with bananas. *grin* This didn't stop it from tasting good, though!

New Pictures!

I've updated 3 previous posts with pictures! ("Look at her go, Bubba! It's like watchin' a streak of lightnin'!)

The Parlor
Satay
The Steeping Room

Now with 42.5% more pictures!

Vegan Caramel Apple Pie Pictures!

...and the award for longest procrastination goes to - The Traveling Austin Vegan! *cheer*

Seriously, though, I finally uploaded pictures of all of my vegan caramel apple pie attempts to my Flickr photostream, and posted the most recent ones on my original blog entry.

Enjoy!

(Man...now I want pie...)

Love For Scones & Whedon

I've been in love with the works of Joss Whedon for quite a while now, mainly stemming from the time one of my friends introduced me to Firefly (Here's the pilot episode on Hulu.) After discovering that I was one of very few people I knew who hadn't watched Buffy and Angel, another friend of mine gave me the first three seasons of Buffy on DVD, and I binge watched them in about 2 or 3 weeks. When I asked her if I could borrow season 4 of Buffy and season 1 of Angel (there's a lot of crossover episodes, for those that didn't already know), she said she'd rather have a weekly watching party where we could watch an episode of each and drink lots of hot tea from her promotional WB Angel/Buffy mugs (kickin' it old school, yo.) Since we're both tea collectors, there is quite a variety of tea to chose from, and since I'm vegan, she graciously bought some soy milk so we could have some with our tea if we wished. For the first episodes party, she made the "one vegan recipe" she knows; a particularly good chocolate cake. For this week's party, I decided to make some scones to go with our tea (Giles would be *so* proud).

Last week, I discovered Bikram Baking: Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones by Isa Chandra Moskowitz on her Post Punk Kitchen website. Since the only chocolate I had in the apartment was one tablet of Ibarra chocolate, I halved the recipe and went from there. I replaced the oil with applesauce, and had a lot of fun smashing the chocolate disc into small pieces with a hammer (in a ziploc bag, of course). The mixture ended up being *very* solid, and clung together in a glob like so much cement wrapped around my hand mixer. I plopped out the scones on the cookie sheet as uniformly as I could, and baked them for 15 minutes at 400 degrees F as the recipe instructed. My resulting scones were absolutely perfect on the outsides - crumbly and sweet, with that nice dry texture that good scones have. However, the centers were still moist and tasted like they might have needed to bake for at least another 5 minutes, especially the larger scones (I had one that lost its bottom when I lifted it off the sheet, even though I had used a silicone liner, and *nothing* sticks to that!) The best I could figure was that the problem arose from either the applesauce substitution or the fact that I was using powdered soymilk, and halving not only the liquid amount (1 1/4 cups), but also trying to figure out exactly how much powdered soy milk to use.



Since I've run out of chocolate (*sad April in snow*), the third gal who comes to the parties gave me some Craisins (dried cranberries) to put in the scones instead. I followed the recipe as written (except for the applesauce substitution), and put in about a cup of Craisins in place of the chocolate. Also, I used sucanat as a sweetener in the first batch, and used evaporated cane juice (granules) in the second batch. This second batch produced scones that looked more like fat cookies, and were uniformly too moist (I mean, they taste good, but they're not really "scone-like".) My boyfriend (who has more sensitive tastebuds than I) said that 2 tablespoons of baking powder seemed like an awful lot, and confirmed it when he tried a finished scone.



I'm figuring that next time, I'll take the soymilk down to 1 cup instead of 1 1/4, and I'll take the baking powder down to perhaps 1 1/2 Tablespoons. I'll probably also increase the baking time to 17 or 18 minutes, and see what happens. If any of my readers have experience making scones, I'd love to hear your ideas!