I am incredibly adventurous when it comes to eating other people’s food. My own? Not so much. I buy the same thing at the grocery store almost every time I go and my daily menu is usually some variation on the following:
Breakfast:
Plain, fat-free yogurt with cinnamon and whole wheat
Snack:
Apple
Peanut Butter
Peanut Butter
More Peanut Butter
Lunch:
Tuna salad on whole wheat or peanut butter
Dinner:
Rice or whole wheat pasta with Cascadian Farm sweet peas or Roasted Brussels Sprouts washed down with lots of red wine or Jameson
Dessert:
Peanut Butter
Such a diet might make it easy to stick to a $50-a-week budget, but as I mentioned last week, I recently joined my local CSA. The $25-a-week share provides me with vegetables, bread and various staples that normal people might already have in their fridges including a half-gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I have never been able down a glass of milk on its own—though I’ll buy it by the pint for my coffee—so a half-gallon is excessive as far as I’m concerned. And I rarely buy eggs unless I’m making something that requires them.
As I was standing in front of my fridge yesterday—already feeling guilty about draining all of that energy—I worried the eggs and milk might go to waste. Any time I buy more than a pint of milk it always sours before I can finish it, and to make matters worse, I’m leaving for Bonnaroo, a music festival in Tennessee, tomorrow.
I had plans to attend a roving vegetarian potluck last night and wondered what I could make; eggs and milk… eggs and milk… eggs and milk… custard! I was extremely proud of this idea because 1. I’d never made a custard before and 2. the weekly event often lacks dessert.
I looked online for the basics of making a custard and found that it is ridiculously easy. So easy, in fact, that I felt shame for all of the milk and eggs I’d let go to waste over the years. I decided to modify this recipe because, as anyone who’s read the intro to my book knows, I never follow a recipe from start to finish—even if I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. Luckily it worked.
