Frugal Friday

Don't throw away those old bread pieces! Being a family of seven, we don't often have too much leftover bread. But sometimes, we do have a few pieces here and there, especially the ends that most of my children don't like. To insure that we do not waste them, I have begun making my own bread crumbs. There are a couple of reasons this is good for us. One is obviously the frugality of not wasting food as well as not having to buy bread crumbs when a recipe calls for it. But secondly, I can assure my family that I know that our bread crumbs are made from freshly ground whole wheat bread and I can control the ingredients I put in them to season them.

All you have to do is take a few slices of at least day old bread. If you need to make crumbs and your bread is not old enough, you can put a few slices in the oven and bake them at 400 degrees to harden them up.

If you have a food processor, you can just break the bread up in chunks and put them in there. I don't have a food processor, so I am using my blender attachment for my Electrolux mixer.

Blend or process until they become crumbs. And it's that easy. You can season these if you want. I wait until I need them for a recipe and season then. I took three small pieces of bread and they yielded one and a half cups of bread crumbs.

These are then put in a ziplock bag and stored in the freezer until I need them. You can also store them in the refrigerator if you know you will be using them earlier. So easy and economical! And if there are not enough crumbs for a particular recipe...just keep adding until you have enough. Happy saving!