One evening after a gauntlet of classes, I was racking my brain for something quick to throw together since cooking and a lecture-fried brain really don’t mix. To any teachers/profs out there: if students aren’t specifically signed up for night class, we don’t want to be in class at night! Ok, off my soapbox. I decided on chicken tacos, but had no condiments aside from store-bought salsa. I used the magic of cell phone internet to find a recipe for avocado salsa in the last 10 minutes of class and stopped by the store for a few things on my way home. The super easy recipe required a lot of chopping, but in this case, “rustic” looking is ok:

Avocado Salsa

This is, of course, pre-mixed, but afterward this salsa made a wonderful taco accoutrement.
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I am coming to terms with the fact that I am apparently on an unofficial mission to try all of Atlanta’s cupcakes. My latest endeavor was CamiCakes Cupcakes, which originated in Florida and now has 3 locations; 2 in Florida, and one here in ATL. My friend Tracie and I made an impromptu stop after noticing the storefront in a shopping center on Peachtree on our way back from lunch one afternoon.

Camicakes

All of the cupcakes looked really delicious, but I finally settled on a Strawberries -n- Cream (strawberries cream cheese frosting on yellow cake) and a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream (chocolate cake topped with peanut butter cream cheese frosting). Prepare for drooling after the jump:
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To start off the New Year right, I bought a copy of the Flat Belly Diet! Cookbook. Before you judge/laugh, 1) It’s a diet cookbook with a cupcake on the cover! and 2) I’m not really on the diet (so I can’t speak for its efficacy), but I always need some fresh “healthy eating” recipes around. So during the ridiculously cold snap we had, I decided to make the vegetarian Curried Apple & Pear soup from my new cookbook. This was a little outside my tastebuds’ normal comfort zone spice-wise, but I ended up enjoying it a lot!

Curried Apple & Pear Soup

Due to copyright issues I don’t think I can actually reproduce the recipe here, but I’ll give a walkthrough and maybe you can find something similar via your favorite search engine.
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The day I lunched at Parish in Inman Park was one of those horribly cold and dreary days Atlanta experienced early in the new year. To warm myself up, I decided to visit Cacao and try their “Aztec Aphrodisia Sipping Chocolate”, which I first caught wind of via The Blissful Glutton‘s blog. In a hidden nook off N. Highland Ave, I found a little heaven in a cup:

Aztec Sipping Chocolate

I’m ashamed to admit that I have spent almost zero time in the Inman Park area since I’ve been in Atlanta. Equally as surprising is that before last week, I had never visited Parish Foods & Goods, a New South eatery with a New Orleans flair (hence “Parish”…we don’t do counties in Louisiana). I stopped by the market side for lunch (Parish consists of the restaurant upstairs and the market downstairs) and was looking forward to trying a po’boy. They offer shrimp, oyster, and for those of us who can’t make up their minds, combo po’boys. I went for the combo:

Shrimp & Oyster Po'boy

This weekend I faced one of my culinary fears: Making bread. Bread making has always seemed like it was super difficult and required some measure of skill that I did not possess. However, I proved myself wrong by making these delicious looking cheese buns I found on The Pink Peppercorn‘s food blog:

Cheese Bun

Cheese Bun

The recipe is for a basic dough (PP says she actually usually uses it for pizza dough) which is then kind of cinnamon-rolled with aged white cheddar and baked. Not only was the process easier than I expected, but they tasted great too.
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On my drive back to Atlanta, I made a pit stop at a little place in Mobile, AL I’ve been meaning to try out since I started making drives to and from Atlanta (~5 years). Wintzell’s Oyster House is apparently a Mobile tradition famous for its “fried, stewed, or nude” oysters. I didn’t visit the original location in “Historic Mobile”, but the Saraland location right off I-65 didn’t disappoint.

Wintzell's Oyster House

The interior walls of the restaurant are covered in corny one-liners–like, “What’s the most arrogant insect? A cocky roach!”–which kept me occupied during my quick stop. I ordered one of Wintzell’s lunch specials: a half dozen oysters on the half shell with fried crab claws and fries. The oysters are served “any way you want ‘em”, and Wintzell’s offers raw, grilled, Rockefeller, Monterey, and Bienville. I asked the waitress whether I could mix and match my cooking styles, and after a quick check with the kitchen I decided on half grilled, half Bienville (covered with shrimp, crabmeat, and parmesean sauce):
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After stuffing ourselves on the usual Christmas feast of gumbo, turkey, ham, and more starchy sides than I care to mention, my brother Vincent and I decided to go check out a new pizzeria near our house, Oscar’s Ice Cream & Pizza Joint.

Oscar's Ice Cream & Pizza Joint

Oscar’s is occupying two suites of what used to be Heads ‘n’ Tails Seafood on Perkins Rd, one suite housing the ice cream shop, and the other the main restaurant. When Vincent and I stopped in for lunch, the small main dining room was not full, but had two or 3 larger parties dining in, a pretty good sign for a holiday afternoon. Oscar’s has a number of really interesting pizza combinations, and we decided to split a 12″ D&A Gumbo (Smoked duck, alligator sausage, andouille sausage & green onion on a roux based tomato gravy):
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