Slow Cooked Shiner Bock Brisket Tacos and Avocado Salad

Our new town Roanoke adopted the slogan, "The Unique Dining Capital of Texas".   With over 40 restaurants, mostly local or at least established in Texas, there is no shortage of supply to satisfy almost any craving.  Every time we're in town we always head over to the old fashion quaint downtown area to one of the local Mexican restaurants (yes, I'm moving from a place that only has about 3 so called "Mexican" resturants in a 25mi radius to one that has two 25 yards apart) Anyway,  Mi Familia provides a fun family friendly atmosphere with festive Mexican dishes and thirst quenching Margaritas. As a creature of habit when it comes to my fav resturants, I am always choosing between the Grilled Fajita Salad with a cilantro lime dressing or the Shiner Bock Brisket Tacos.

In celebration of our move to Texas I wanted to recreate Mi Famila's Shiner Bock Bristet because it combined two of Texas' quintessential culinary fares, Mexican and BBQ.  In addition to Shiner Bock Beer which is made in Shiner, Texas,  I wanted to add another Texas made product and accent the finished dish with Fuzzy's Butt Burning Hot Sauce.

I was introduced to both Shiner Bock Beer and Fuzzy's Taco from my "I'm not from Texas but I got there as quick as I could" husband.  Beau is a beer connoisseur of sorts but when asked what comes to mind when he thinks of beer, a good ol' chilled Shiner Bock is the front runner.  You used to only be able to get Shiner Bock from a few locations which were listed on it's website.  I felt like the prize girlfriend when I went out of my way after a family trip to pick up a case for this taste of home beer deprived med student back in Iowa.  Of course I had to have my daddy buy it because I was underage but that's a different story...Fast forward almost a decade and now, even our little shoppette here in Germany carries this from time to time.

Fuzzy's Taco Shop is located across from Beau's amla mater, TCU.  This local establishment was on the verge of closing it's doors after only two years when regular (and business savvy) customers saw a hidden gem.  There are now over 42 stores in 7 states including good ol' Roanoke.  Their popular Baja Fish Taco is a delicacy in itself but top it with their infamous Butt Burning Hot Sauce and you really are in for a tasty treat.  While it will be a few months before we can indulge in Fuzzy's when a craving hits, for now our pantry is not complete without a bottle or two of this goodness.

It took some research to figure out how to go about with this recipe as there was no particular recipe that had exactly what I wanted.  I really wanted to capture the subtle sweetness of the beer and to not overwhelm the natural flavors with unnecessary spices as the hot sauce in itself compliments the simplicity of the dish .  On the side I include a fresh Avacado Salad that added almost a lightness to a usually heavy dish.  My husband was supportive but skeptical of my process.  The results of my first true attempt at Tex Mex, fabulous.    Maybe Texas will be a good fit with me after all.

Slow Cooked Shiner Bock Beef Brisket Tacos
3lb trimmed Beef Brisket
Shiner Bock BBQ Sauce* (or favorite sweet BBQ sauce we like Stubs Honey Pecan)
12oz Shiner Bock Beer
Salt and Pepper (Cayenne for an extra spice)
4 cloves Garlic smashed
2 whole Jalapenos pierced
Corn Tortillas
Lettuce
Cheese
Fuzzy Butt Burning Hot Sauce (or other hot sauce if desired)


Salt and pepper brisket and place in bottom of stoneware.  Add 1/2 of the BBQ sauce (reserve the rest) combined with Shiner Bock beer.  Marinate over night.

Pour out the 3/4 of the liquid.  Add reserved BBQ sauce, garlic and jalapenos and turn on low for 6-8 hours until brisket shreds apart easily.

Make tacos with your favorite ingredients. I used lettuce, feta, and Fuzzy's Butt Burning Sauce on corn tortillas and it was delish!


Shiner Bock BBQ Marinade
Olive Oil
1/2 cup diced onion
2 garlic cloves
1/2 Jalapeno de-seeded and sliced
1 cup room temp Shiner Bock Beer
1 cup Tomato Sauce (or Ketchup for a thicker sauce)
1/4 cup White Vinegar
1/4 cup Worcestershire Sauce
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Dry Mustard

Saute Onion and Garlic and Jalapeno in olive oil in a medium size sauce pan until slightly browned.  Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Use an immersion blender to blend.

Avocado Salad
Combine 1 Avocado Peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes, a variety of heirloom tomatoes, corn, black beans, and red onion.  Drizzle juice of one lime, salt and pepper, and fresh cilantro.  Toss to combine.

Clean Slate

At the site of our future home!

After almost a year of planning and dreaming, our house if officially under construction.  It was a hectic few weeks in the States and now that the jet lag has ceased, I can breath a sigh of relief knowing our part of the job is done...for now.

We knew going into the design center that our style would be too modern for Drees' typical home.  We had a priority list of what we just had to have and what could be completed at a later date.  When we were negotiating the price for our home, we included a design center budget that we were adamant that we were not going to go over.   We had to remind ourselves that a fallacy of building a home (at least through a corporate builder) is that the design is done as soon as you are handed the keys.  There will be a lot of interior design work as well as possible upgrades down the road to make our house a home that reflects our personal style.

I knew it would be a stretch to even ask, but we couldn't do the cable rod staircase that I showed in Pinspiration.  We instead chose a simple square antiqued bronze vertical balister with an Arts and Crafts style newel post.  The shaker style cabinets were a huge upgrade expense since they switch out the entire cabinet and not just the cabinet front. We stuck with their standard one and will invest in some modern hardware to accent it.

Since we were planning on upgrading those two items originally, we had some money left over that we were able to add to the actual construction of the home.  We squared off the end of island in the kitchen to make room for a built in wine fridge.  Where I was planning on doing a micro/oven combo, we turned that into a micro/DOUBLE oven combo (perfect for hosting parties).  Another fun surprise was that when the builder was looking at our blueprints he noticed behind the shower in the master bath, was dead space.  A couple of walls will be expanded into an ultra huge shower with a double shower head. Completely unnecessary but why the heck not.

Our awesome Design Consultant took some pictures of our selections.  Oh, and just in case you are keeping tabs, we went with the Modern Nature inspiration for our exterior (note to self, look into xeriscaping).  Missing is the accent tile in the kitchen which we chose after discussing our selections at our celebratory dinner at Bob's Steak and Chop House (which by the way, if you are in the DFW area...a must).  We also changed the carpet (upstairs and in master) to slightly darker.  A home has to be livable after all despite how perfect I want it to look 100% of the time.  Working on that whole realistic expectations thing.

During the next 6 months we'll get updates from our market manager and my father-in-law of the entire process including photos.  We're trying to decide if we'll actually look at the photos or just wait until closing for the big reveal (can you tell we watched a ton of HGTV while we were stateside?).  In the meantime, on to the next project...decorating ideas!