Girl dinnering my way through the CSA
Everything I ate in a week.
I suppose there could be an interesting essay about gender and the parade of “girl” trends on TikTok over the years. Hot girl walks, tomato girl summer, clean girl aesthetic, girl math, girl dinner: this is somehow about the infantilization of women blah blah. I can’t care! Let the girls post!
Girl dinner, IMO, is funny and true to life. Girl dinner is an assemblage of snacky but nonetheless filling foods one pulls together for a meal by oneself. Pickles, sliced cheese, fruit, a single warm tortilla, buttered noodles if you’re fancy… Who doesn’t love snacks for dinner?
Skylar was out of town a few weeks ago, and I thought compiling a diary on solo eating might be interesting. He and I share dinner responsibilities and work together (fairly well) to get through our CSA box each week in a non-wasteful fashion. I work from the office on the nights he cooks, and god, it’s beautiful to come home and have dinner ready for me. It’s easy to take for granted how great it is not to cook for myself 100% of the time. But what does it look like when I have seven to ten vegetables, little time, and only myself to answer to?
You know the drill of the CSA diaries by now: From May through November, 607 CSA delivers a box of locally grown vegetables to a nearby storefront, along with a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk. Every other week, we receive a box of fruit and a Tilsit-style cheese from Harpersfield Cheese.
Thankfully, this was not a fruit week, so I didn’t need to figure out how to eat eight peaches myself. This week, I received tomatoes, green beans, parsley, beets, potatoes, sweet peppers, and kale. It was also a cheese week, and I got a jalapeño cheese (the inclusions change each time—fun!), eggs, and milk.
Bolded items indicate ingredients from the CSA.
Tuesday dinner
I made my Tofu Rice Bowl, adorned with a fried egg, cabbage from a previous week’s CSA box, tomatoes, and a few raw sweet peppers.
I doubled the recipe to bring lunches to the office on Wednesday and Thursday. This is the only thing I’ll “meal prep”—I dislike eating leftovers for more than one day. The power of Tofu Rice Bowl…
Since I had the cutting board out, I sliced and parboiled the potatoes for use later in the week, which I strained and put in the fridge. While I cleaned up the kitchen, I started a batch of yogurt in the Instant Pot with the milk. I fermented it overnight and put it in the fridge to chill the next morning.
(I recently switched to another local yogurt as my starter, as I’ve noticed the store-bought Fage has been especially weak. I’m unsure if I got a few bad batches or if they changed the strength of their bacteria cultures? Have you made Instant Pot yogurt yet?)
Wednesday breakfast
I made soft scrambled eggs with finely chopped parsley. I still had some rye bread from ACQ bakery in the freezer, so I toasted it and topped it with Murray’s cream cheese from Farm To People and my homemade Everything Bagel seasoning.
Wednesday lunch
Tofu rice bowl! I added a tablespoon of chia seeds and garnished it with Kewpie mayo I keep in the office fridge.
Wednesday dinner
After work, I went to an acupuncture appointment and got home around 8:30. I made a grilled cheese using jalapeño cheese and slices of homemade sourdough. I also cut up an apple from the prior week’s fruit box.
Thursday breakfast
I quickly grilled the parboiled potatoes in cast iron and served them over Greek yogurt with parsley. I also made a piece of buttered toast. I love savory yogurt for breakfast.
Thursday lunch
Tofu Rice Bowl!!!
Thursday dinner
The most girl dinner of girl dinners: chips and salsa.
I made a lazy salsa with the remaining tomatoes, white onion, sweet peppers, and a few dashes of Burlap and Barrel’s Hoja Santa & Salt that I got in a recent spice club box. The chips are from Vista Hermosa, the best store-bought tortilla chips I’ve ever had.
Before bed, I got a little hungry, so I ate a few spoonfuls of peanut butter.
Friday breakfast
Rare for me, but I didn’t feel hungry this morning. I skipped breakfast and drank coffee instead. When I woke up, I fed the sourdough starter and started a loaf around lunchtime.
Friday lunch
I made a quick potato salad with the remaining parboiled potatoes and parsley. To add protein, I boiled a few eggs. The eggs overpowered the potatoes but still, it was good. I also ate an apple for an afternoon snack.
Friday dinner
I had grand plans to make tacos for dinner, but by the end of the workday I was energy-less. I ordered delivery from Lakou Cafe—the always fabulous fried oyster mushroom sandwich with plantains and salad.
After its bulk ferment in the bread proofer, I shaped the sourdough and put in the fridge to ferment overnight.
Saturday breakfast
I was up early to meet my friend Eric for a yoga class. I made a smoothie with frozen peaches, yogurt whey, water, flax, and hemp seeds.
Saturday lunch
After class, we went to Librae Bakery. We got coffees and shared the pistachio-rose croissant and tomato-creamed corn Danish. I also picked up a loaf of oat and seeded sourdough and a feta dill scone.
I pre-heated the Dutch oven and baked the sourdough when I got home. After mine cooled, I sliced both loaves and put half in the fridge and half in the freezer.
Saturday dinner
I used my post-yoga energy to start on dinner. We were out of my beloved Caramelo tortillas, so I followed Erin McDowell’s tortilla recipe in Savory Baking. Easy and delicious!
I roasted the beets, loosely following this recipe. I made a cabbage slaw with Mexican oregano, white vinegar, and a few more sprinkles of the Hoja Santa salt. I also made quick refried beans using Good Mother Stallard beans I thawed from the freezer, an onion, and a few more diced sweet peppers.
Sunday breakfast
I warmed up one of the tortillas from the prior night and put soft scrambled eggs on top.
Sunday lunch
With the yogurt from earlier in the week, I added leftover roasted beets and toasted a piece of the Librae Bakery sourdough. I sprinkled finely chopped parsley on top.
Sunday dinner
I wrote down “snacked on something” for this meal’s entry. Your guess is as good as mine.
Monday breakfast
Breakfast was cream cheese on sourdough toast again and a fried egg.
Monday lunch
I made a quesadilla with jalapeño cheese and leftover refried beans with the remaining cabbage slaw on the side.
Monday dinner
I still had the green beans and kale from the box left. Ugh kale!!!
I set out to make sautéed green beans, but when I flipped through Hetty McKinnon’s From Asia With Love to see if she had a recipe, I stumbled upon her recipe “Pasta salad with umeboshi vinaigrette” with green beans and kale. Perfect.
I didn’t have umeboshi, but she suggested miso-paste as a substitute. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I used two tablespoons of miso which made the sauce far too rich, especially as the dish sat. I followed the recipe closely except I sautéed the kale because I don’t like the taste or digestive experience of raw kale.
Until next time, girls.
loved this