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....

:)

Frugal Finds: Freezing Basil

I was at Grocery Outlet the other day when I saw this fresh basil on sale for .50 cents! I usually steer clear of produce at Grocery Outlet and just get pantry staples as the produce is usually.... lets just say, a bit past it's prime. But, upon closer inspection, this basil looked pretty fresh, despite the fact that it had officially "expired" the day before. So, I snapped it up with the high hopes of getting home and making a pasta of fresh tomatos, mozzarella, and basil. Alas, it was not meant to be. I didnt get home until 830 and I ended up falling asleep reading my new Cooking Light... So the next morning when I awoke, I remembered my expired basil! Oh no, what to do? I was going out for dinner and didn't want to use it for anything else. So I decided it would be best to store it, but how? I found an easy tutorial on ehow.com about freezing fresh basil and I decided to give it a shot. Here's what I did:

Wash basil by submersing in a bowl of cold water and swirling.

Dry it off very well using two paper towels. Pull the leaves off the stems. Discard Stems.

Finely chop basil (use a food processor if you have one, I don't so I just chopped it up with my chef's knife.) Toss basil with a bit of olive oil to give it a light coating and keep it from going brown. Put into a small tupperware and freeze.

Easy as that! Now whenever you are ready to use it, pull it out, thaw, and enjoy!

Happy Sunday, hope you had a STUPENDOUS weekend!