Bread Crumbs

One of the hardest things about cooking and hosting a Thanksgiving dinner is trying to figure out what the heck to do with all those leftovers.  This year a sweet lady I know brought a bunch of rolls for dinner and there were a ton of leftovers.  She didn't want to bring them home since she lives alone, and they had sat out uncovered long enough to start getting stale so I knew the Peanut Gallery wasn't going to help me get rid of them.  I also hated the idea of throwing them away, so I starting thinking.  This is almost always dangerous territory.

Luckily for me, I remembered Barbara (yes, the same one you've been hearing about lately!) telling me not too long ago that she made her own whole wheat bread crumbs.  Hot diggity!  I had a plan.  Although I don't use a lot of bread crumbs around here, I do use them pretty regularly because I make spinach balls at least one a month for handsome man.  I also sometimes do baked chicken nuggets (now there's a recipe I need to post!) or a batch of stuffed  mushrooms which also call for bread crumbs, so they would most definitely not be going to waste.

The first thing I did was leave the rolls out overnight because I didn't have time to deal with them on Thursday.  By Friday afternoon, though, I was ready to speed the drying process along.  So I broke the rolls in half and spread them out on a cookie sheet.

Then I baked them in the oven on about 250 to 275 for a while, checking them every 20-30 minutes.  After a while, the outsides were feeling pretty dried and crusty.  That's when I started breaking them into smaller bits, like this:

If I was smart I would have probably started off this way, but oh, well!  Live and learn, I guess.

Once I was sure the leftovers were nice and dry all the way through (no soft centers, people - it's important!) I put them in a gallon-size ziplock bag.  Then I put that inside another one to make sure crumbs wouldn't be flying all over my kitchen.  That's when I got out one of my favorite kitchen tools... the meat mallet. 

I used the flat side (of course) to smash those babies to little bits.  Look at it this way: even if you'll never use the bread crumbs, this was a good exercise to help you deal with that pent-up frustration that no one helped you clean up after that huge dinner, right?  (And if you're not into the physical labor part of this activity, feel free to use your blender or food processor!)

Once you've got your bread crumbs, be sure to store them in an airtight container in the freezer.