When life gives you stale bread... make breadcrumbs!

Some of my favorite words (in no particular order):

Cheap

Easy

Homemade

These bread crumbs are all three! I recently blogged about the rockin bread machine I bought for 5 bucks at a garage sale. Unfortunatly this machine did not come with an instructions manual so I wasn't exactly sure about porportions/baking cycles. Therefore, my first loaf was an experiment, and it failed. I chose to try a whole wheat/molasses/corn meal bread recipe I found in one of my cookbooks and lets just say the results were less than spectacular.

The loaf came out heavy and dry. grrr.... what a waste! But wait! There must be something I can use this for.... a weapon? a paper weight? hmm... I've got it! Bread crumbs! They are dry, work well with whole wheat, and they are super versatile. I dont have a food processor or blender so I pulled out my trusty cheese grater and used it to grate the bread into fine little crumbs.

If you have a food processor or blender this would make the process even easier!

I had placed the loaf in the freezer while I decided how I was going to use it, so grating was a breeze as it was hard as a rock. I wouldn't recommend trying to grate fresh bread, freeze or toast the loaf first so it has a dry, hard texture. After grating the loaf up, I spread the crumbs out on a foil lined cookie tray and popped them in the oven for about 20 minutes on very low heat to dry them out even more and give them a toasty flavor. The crumbs can be stored in a ziplock bag in the freezer. When you are ready to use them, pull them out, add some seasonings and voilá! Homemade, healthy bread crumbs!

Now I'm off to look for a good recipe to utilize my crumbs!

Maybe this one

OR

this one

OR

this one....

:)