Bread Crumbs

My friend Nikki just gave me a great idea, and I wanted to pass it on:

What do you do with old bread?

As a kid growing up my mom made French Toast on Saturday mornings with the old stale bread. We were a family of 5 so it was an easy way to use up any bread that was left, and have a tasty cheap meal. Now that I am the mom and only have 1 toddler running around I could make French Toast and still have bread left over. We eat sandwiches almost everyday, but we never finish a whole loaf of bread.

I came across a blog by a fellow etsian called Lost Button Studio. She had a post on homemade bread crumbs, and I thought it was genius. I'm sure many of you make your own bread crumbs, but it never really occurred to me that it was so simple. Be sure to read her post because she gives some great examples of ways to use them.

I had planned on making a new recipe for Meatloaf Muffins that called for bread crumbs, so this was a perfect opportunity to make them. I broke the bread into pieces and put them in the oven at 200 degrees while I ate lunch. I could have left them on the counter to dry out, but I was in a pinch for time. After lunch I put them in my mini food processor and it did all of the work.
I now have plenty of bread crumbs for meatloaf and chicken parmigiana, these are regular meals around here. You can also freeze them so that they last longer.