Meatless Mondays in NYC Schools?

The City Room reported today that Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, is pushing for meatless Mondays in New York City schools to promote healthy eating and cut down on costs. Baltimore’s public schools have taken up the program and offering options like eggplant parmesean and black bean nachos. Each meal costs 20 cents less than an average meal with meat.

A program like this makes perfect sense in a city where one in five kindergartners is obese, and when you consider the environmental impact of not producing those weekly orders of thousands of pounds of meat, it’s a no-brainer.

Polenta Pie

polentadone

My mouth is still not fully healed from my surgery, but this weekend was the first time I branched out beyond pasta and I may have gone a bit overboard. Saturday dinner was barbecue from Fette Sau, Sunday morning brunch was vegetarian eggs Benedict at Brooklyn Label, and Valentine’s Day dinner was a chicken taco by Ramsey at my request. The whole weekend was rounded out with a game of Scrabble and an assortment of Italian pastries from Fortunato Brothers in Williamsburg. Oof.

I felt a recipe from The Moosewood Cookbook was in order for dinner tonight, and I chose Polenta Pie. Photos and a short recap after the jump. Continue Reading →

Recovery Dining

I had my wisdom teeth removed last Wednesday, and over the past four days, I have learned some valuable lessons.

The nutritional drinks typically consumed by the old and infirm taste pretty good. Chocolate Ensure is like a thin milkshake in a handy little bottle. The only downside is that the second ingredient is sugar. The third? Corn syrup.
Organic pureed soups in a box are also surprisingly good.
Despite my love of mashed potatoes, no amount of butter can make them satisfying four meals in a row.
Chocolate pudding is very easy to make from scratch. I chose a recipe from Simply Recipes because it didn’t require a double boiler, and with an egg involved, I convinced myself eating two cups in one sitting helped my protein intake.
Do not schedule wisdom tooth extractions before major food-related holidays. Today should have involved a chicken finger sub, but instead I nibbled on some boiled dumplings.
No amount of painkillers could make The Watchmen seem like a good movie. All I wanted to see was a giant squid attack.
It’s difficult to focus on reading post-extraction, but I was able to get some design work done. You can see the redesign of my personal website at mocahill.com.

Liquid Diet

My wisdom teeth are coming out tomorrow. I’ve stocked up on juices, pureed soups, jello, Ensure, potatoes, and I bought supplies to make chocolate pudding from scratch. Will I have the motivation to shuffle to the kitchen in a pain killer haze and use a double boiler? I’m not sure, but if I do, I will document it here.

Undergoing major oral surgery is bad enough, but tomorrow also happens to be a big potluck at work. I’m lucky to have a number of colleagues that are avid home cooks, so the fact I will be unable to consume any of their dishes is a culinary tragedy. There is a regional theme, so I made a batch of Irish cream cookies as the boiled foods of my homeland aren’t the best crowd pleasers.

I’ll see you on the flip side, AD readers. If I believed in a higher power, I’d ask you to pray for me, but instead, just eat a whole lot of crunchy, spicy food on my behalf.

Five Ingredients: Butternut Squash Pasta

butternut

I had an intense smoked meat sandwich today from a new Brooklyn delicatessen called Mile End. The options for the sandwich are not a choice of meat varieties but a choice of fat level: lean, medium, or fatty. It was a delicious, heart-stopping, and slightly overpriced meal that drove me to finally join the gym this evening. And yet, I don’t regret my lunch choice because I’ve been enjoying lighter vegetarian meals the rest of the week.

A prime example is the butternut squash pasta I made on Sunday. It was easy to make and it used almost five ingredients, but a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese put it over the top. I’m placing it under my “Five Ingredients” category anyway because the amount of cheese is minimal enough to count as a seasoning. Continue Reading →

Recipe Rookie: Carrot Soup

carrot1

After a weekend of parties, movies, and a trip to Teddy Roosevelt’s house in Oyster Bay, I spent Monday winding things down and preparing for the week. As I was cleaning items out of the refrigerator in the morning, I discovered that I had a pound of unused carrots on the bottom shelf. I turned to the New York Times’ Recipes for Health, where recipes are broken down by main ingredient and, as the title of the website section suggests, they’re good for you.

A pureed carrot soup looked like a perfect option. I had most of the ingredients on hand, and other than peeling and chopping two pounds of carrots, preparation was simple. You can find the recipe here and some photos from my adventure after the jump. Continue Reading →

Roasted Beet Wrap

wrap1

December was a month of gluttony. Dozens upon dozens of cookies were laid to waste by my holiday appetite, and honestly, I don’t regret a single peanut butter blossom or cornflake wreath cookie. Food and family are what the season is all about for me, and if I can’t spend a few weeks a year consuming all manner of fattening treats without guilt, what’s the point of Christmas?

The only downside to this indulgence is that my clothes are not quite fitting like they should, and I can’t afford to purchase a new wardrobe if I gain a few more pounds. In response, I decided to get back to healthy meals by following the simple rules set forth by Michael Pollan: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” A roasted vegetable wrap featuring beets, turnips, arugula, hummus, and more seemed like the perfect fit—a recreation of a wrap I had a few weeks before at Angelica Kitchen in the East Village—and it kept well for leftovers throughout the week. Continue Reading →

Mushroom Ragu

ragu

After a month of limited cooking, it felt good to make my shopping list, grab my reusable canvas bags like a true Park Sloper, and head out to the market for the ingredients for a mushroom ragu. My first recipe of 2010 is not a complicated one, but it is a satisfying, simple dish that reheats well the next day. It can also be doubled (or tripled) to serve as a layer in a vegetarian lasagna.

Before I get to the recipe though, I want to do a quick follow-up on my New Years resolutions. I admit I have not brought my lunch to work this week and I have not written in my journal since Monday. However, I’ve made dinner four nights and I made an appointment to have my wisdom teeth removed. (Can you hear the joy in my prose?) If you have any suggestions for good post-wisdom tooth removal recipes, I’d love to hear them. Now, on to the recipe. Continue Reading →

New Year’s Resolutions

I have posted my New Year’s resolutions on the web since 2005, believing that if I post them in a public forum and revisit them at the end of the year, I am more likely to follow through. I’ve never accomplished every single one, but I believe I’ve completed more of them as a result.

Before I launch into a review of last year’s resolutions and provide the new list for 2010, I have to say that 2009 was the most difficult in my quarter century of existence, with months of unemployment and fighting to find freelance work taking its toll. I felt crippled creatively, devoting all of my energy to job hunting and stressing about finances, but cooking and this blog provided a welcome relief. When I put on my headphones and entered the kitchen to cook dinner or bake, everything else fell away.

Despite its hardships, I ended 2009 in a good place (particularly with the holidays). I’m employed full time and doing work that I enjoy, my love life is back on track, and I also love where I live. Things can only go up from here.

2009 Resolution Review:
1. Find a job in this lovely financial meltdown: Done. Both freelance work and my current full time employment.
2. Post on Apartment Dining once every two days, post on my personal blog once a week: Well, I posted here three times a week for a good stretch, but definitely not on my personal blog. I wrote four posts there all year.
3. Finally send out some work to publications. I really have no excuse at this point: Submitted to a handful of publications, but nothing was accepted.
4. Be more conscious of spending and increase balance in my savings account: I was very conscious of spending, but didn’t have much left over to put in my savings account.
5. Once finances stabilize, take another writing class and make sure it’s an actual workshop, not reading work aloud once a week: Finances didn’t stabilize (and still haven’t completely).
6. Related to #5: take a cooking class: Again, no stable finances.
7. Increase overall creative output: Done.
8. Read more, both fiction and food writing: Done.
9. Explore more of Brooklyn: Well, I moved to another part of Brooklyn, so mission accomplished.
10. If finances improve, take a real vacation: Again with the finances. I was so optimistic last January.

Resolutions for 2010
1. Continue to increase creative output, and if enough suitable work is ready, submit to at least two publications per month.
2. Maintain a daily journal.
3. Increase the balance in my savings account.
4. Take care of myself, both physically and mentally. This means regular check-ups at the doctor and maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
5. Attend more cultural events in New York.
6. Go on a culinary adventure at least once a month.
7. Cook dinner or have leftovers four days a week. Related: Bring lunch to work four days a week.
8. Post here at least twice a week, ideally three times a week.
9. Redesign my personal website.
10. Go on weekend adventures. Montreal? Jersey? Boston? Anything’s game.

To help ring in the New Year, I’ve posted a few of my favorite photos from the holidays after the jump. You can see the full album in my Flickr set. Continue Reading →