Made It: Breadcrumbs

I'm about to start a string of posts of things that are totally simple to make yourself.  So simple, in fact, that I almost feel silly posting about it.  Because they're that obvious.  Honestly, I don't think you are a moron.  I just thought I would share these awesome ideas with you!

Today's Made It is a total no-brainer.  We eat homemade bread here, which means that we slice it ourselves.  For some reason that is eluding me at the moment, the bread heels often don't get eaten.  They stay in the bread box until they get crusty and moldy and then we throw them out.  Stupid, right?  Until a little while ago, when Dave started collecting all of our unloved bread heels in a bag in the freezer.  Find a bread end?  Add it to the bag!  Until we had a decent sized bag full of various types of crusts.  (How many different words can I use for the same thing?)

Yesterday I wanted to make some oven fried chicken and needed breadcrumbs.  Project time!

I won't sport with your intelligence by telling you how to make breadcrumbs, but I will say that I recommend toasting them a bit.  Even after being in the freezer for several weeks (or months) the bread still held quite a bit of moisture.  After putting the pieces in the blender I toasted them in the oven for a while until they didn't have steam escaping them when I stirred them up.  That way I know they won't get soggy in their jar in the fridge!

This is just one of many small things you can do and make yourself around the house to save a few dollars.  An added bonus of this one is that I know exactly where everything came from.  It's like following the life cycle of my bread!  Hello little crumbs!  Thank you, you were delicious...