I don't know how it is at your house, but most of the time, I found myself throwing away the heels of my bread. Now, the funny thing is, on a nice crispy crust, chewy center type loaf the ends of the bread are my favorite, so there is something unusual in this fact to me. In addition, it seemed that every time that we had a "special" loaf of bread, invariably there was a piece or two that went uneaten and were ultimately thrown out.
Then, one day, I had a light bulb go off in my head. (feels like it should be on not off, but anyway). I started to save those heels and those extra pieces of bread in a bread bag in the freezer. Once I had a bag full of bread ends and pieces, I placed them on a stone and put them in my oven at 275 for about an hour. This time in a warm oven allowed them to first thaw and then dry out and some even got a little toasted.
Then, working in small batches, I broke apart the bread and place it into my food processor. A few quick whirls and voila! - Bread Crumbs.
I store them in the freezer, just to make sure that they keep and are fresh.
Now, not only am I not throwing out bread, but I'm not spending money buying bread crumbs and I have fresh bread crumbs for all of my favorite recipes that use bread crumbs. That works for me!
This post shared at Works for Me Wednesday, What I Whipped Up Wednesday and Frugal Friday.
Great idea - we waste bread at our house too, and it bothers me, so I'll have to try this.
ReplyDeleteI do this too. I just knot the bag when it gets down to the 2 heels and toss in the freezer side door. When I get a bunch I grind em up in the ole mini food chopper and freeze them in a freezer bag til I need them for a recipe.
ReplyDeleteI don't now what I'd do without my freezers!