Tag archive for brisket

On the weekends the Spangler household can usually be found filled to the brim with yummy home-cooked food, scads of close friends and a bevy of potluck dishes sitting all lined up in a row on our long kitchen bar. We are the potluck household, and more often than not our weekends are spent in preparation of/enjoying/cleaning up a BBQ, themed potluck or snacky get-together.

awaiting BBQ friends

Brett loves to cook, and to entertain, and I… well, I just like to eat and hang out. So when Wednesday rolls around and we start contemplating our weekend plans, inviting friends over for food, merriment and booze is usually in the cards. Last Friday we had some dear friends of ours and their two adorable littles over for an evening of pot pie and wine (they brought dessert!). If you only make one pot pie in your life, use this Ad Hoc recipe. You can thank me later.

Ad Hoc pot pies

This past weekend, since Brett just got his new Weber Smokey Mountain smoker (the super expensive smoker he bought has never worked right and has caused him a whole lotta grief, but that’s another story…) he was itching to try it out. Our maiden smoker voyage was a might tasty brisket! Brett also made deviled duck eggs, vegetarian baked beans and a pink lemonade icebox pie. YUM. About eight of our amigos came over with their potluck goodness, including: roasted cauliflower, vegan chocolate cake with peanut butter icing, fresh corn and zucchinni salad, sliced watermelon and German potato salad.

Weber Smokey Mountain

smoke rings in the brisket

After the BBQ madness, on Sunday I took Clem for a long walk along the lake on a sunny mid-80s day here in Austin. It was gorgeous, and a great mother-son field trip away from the house. We let Dad stay home and mow the front yard (with Iris enthusiastically looking on from the front porch). And then I promptly tripped and fell taking the trash out when I got home and sprained my ankle. </weekendfun> At least I ate good food and drank nice booze eh?

Clem dog

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Since moving down from Seattle to Austin, the gastro-nerd hubs of mine has wanted to take a mini field trip out to Elgin or Lockhart to taste some of that world famous BBQ some swear by. This weekend the craving hit hard and we high-tailed it to Lockhart early in the day to partake in some BBQ sampling.

Unfortunately, one of the three big BBQ landmarks in the little old town, Kreuz, was closed on Sundays (what BBQ joint isn’t open on Sundays? Blasphemy.), so we couldn’t eat there. We began our taste test with Black’s BBQ, a homey shack of a restaurant that serves buffet style sides, and your choice of protein from the guy standing behind the register in a meaty apron hacking away at different cuts on a heavy chopping block. The jalapeno cheese sausage was a bit bland and not even approaching spicy, and the brisket burnt ends had a good bark on them but had obviously been sitting out a bit too long. My husband had a monster rib, which turned out to be more about shock value and less about taste. The mac and cheese was appropriately gooey, and an unhealthy shade of yellow orange, but was pretty tasty.

Our second destination on our mini weekend BBQ field trip was to Smitty’s, which had more of a long saloon hall vibe with an impressive smoker in the back part of the building. You walk all the way to the back to order your meat, and you WILL NOT come out of that smoker room smelling of anything other than rich meaty smoke. You order your sides at the pay counter and saddle up to one of the long benches that span the room. The “hot ring” sausage we had was greasy but chock full of flavor. White bread was a perfect vehicle for the piping hot goodness. The fatty brisket that the hubs ordered had the fat cap cut off (boo!) and wasn’t really that impressive. My BBQin’ hubs’ brisket is better than both of the options we had today. Overall we preferred Smitty’s in just about every category.

Oh… AND I got a little wacky with some fabric scraps, hot glue and a pretty button and made something. I got inspired by a piece of patchwork wall art I saw while browsing Etsy and decided to wing it and try my own. In hindsight, perhaps I should have left it as just the sewn-together pieces of patchwork fabric, and not put on the rosettes or button. But perhaps not. Either way, it felt good to get crafty today after all the moving/job madness of the last few weeks!

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