I hate wasting food. It isn’t something I do easily. It makes all my hardcore deal obsessed shopping a complete waste of time! So when something is in danger of going bad soon, I try to come up with a creative way to re-purpose it.

Today was one of those times. We had 2 loaves of Trader Joe’s ciabatta bread that was getting a little more crusty than preferred, and if you’ve ever tried it, you know it’s way too good to waste! So when discussing our lunch options, it hit me. Why not make my yummy ciabatta bread into yummier croutons for the massive salad I want to make!?

I’m not gonna lie, I’m not a huge fan of croutons. The bagged ones you buy at the store are just kind of annoying, and processed to me. So I rarely bother with them. But let me tell you, the real deal is so much better! Being able to control what’s on them, and in them makes eating healthier (not to mention vegan) a whole lot easier.

Have you ever made your own croutons? Me neither before today, but man it was was so easy! I’ll tell you how I did it. I don’t feel comfortable really calling it a recipe, considering a blindfolded cat could do it.

You need some kind of bread that you have laying around, and want to use up. As I said before, I used ciabatta. Cube it up into bite sized pieces, and arrange them on a baking sheet. Drizzle a fair amount of olive oil over them, along with seasonings of your choice. I used some fresh ground pepper, garlic salt, and Italian seasoning. Give them a good toss to coat with oil. Bake them in a preheated oven at 375°, for around 10 or 15 minutes. Taste test, because they’re amazingly yummy hot. Then let them cool, and toss a handful into the soup or salad of your choice!

Now that I know how amazing these bad boys taste, you can rest assured that bread will never go bad in this house again! I hope you try, and enjoy them as well.

-Michele

Tags: easy, recipe, saving money, yummy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.