Bread crumbs

When cooking I use bread crumbs to help hold meat together for things like meatballs, meatloaf, or hamburgers.  They add flavor and make things stick.

When grocery shopping they run about $3 or so in my area and it just seems like an extra cost to the bill.  Since we do buy a half of a cow we eat a lot of beef and always have a lot of ground beef on hand, so I use bread crumbs quite a bit.

Another staple in our pantry is bread.  I do go to an outlet store and get bread for about $1 a loaf.  (I usually stock up by getting 5 or 6 loaves at a time and just putting the extras in the freezer until I need them.)  I have one child that refuses to eat the crust and heaven forbid I use the heals to make any one's sandwich.

Sometimes I throw them out for the birds to eat, but most of the time they just get tossed in the trash. 

Then there are packs of hot dog buns and hamburger buns that have one or two extras left over that just sit around until they are stale and get tossed as well.

What a waste!!

So, I have been thinking lately about how I can use the "unwanted" pieces and save money at the same time.  The result of my thinking: I am attempting to make my own bread crumbs. 

How to make your own:
    Take unwanted bread (if you want to do a large batch just store pieces in a freezer friendly container in the freezer until you have enough) and lay in a single layer on a cookie sheet.  Bake in the oven at 250 for about 30 minutes on each side.  This allows the bread to dry out and will prevent it from being stale or molding from moisture.
    After drying out the bred in the oven let it totally cool. 
   Once cooled use food processor to chop until desired size.
    Add in dried herbs (if you want to add flavor or make into Italian crumbs) and blend together.
    You can freeze them, store in the fridge, or (if you dried the bread in the over) store in an air tight container for up to about 6 months.

As I am typing, I have my first batch in the oven drying out.  I can't wait to try them out.  If you do an online search you can find 100s of recipes for these.  Seems I am not the only one with this idea and I can't believe it has taken me 30 years to try to put my bread heals to good use!

Happy savings!

-Sarah D.