Friday, April 23, 2010

Bread Overload!


A week ago I was given an abundance of bread by a church friend. This gift included:
  • 4 loaves of Costco Pugliese Bread
  • 4 loaves of Costco Whole Grain Bread
  • 2 Costco Baguettes
  • 6 big Costco sandwich rolls
  • 2 packages of 6 bagels each
Here's a photo of about half of it



This is obviously a lot of bread and it has been a little more complicated to use because the bread had already passed its pull date and was starting to harden. So what do I do with all of this? Without filling up my freezer (which as you all know I'm trying to get empty!)? It has been a carb-tastic week. Here's what we've done so far:
  • First I sliced up the baguettes and half of the sandwich rolls into thin wafers. I make a yummy appetizer that uses bread slice that way, so it was a good place to start. Those pieces are in the fridge in Ziplocs for now. I'll use about half for company this weekend.
  • The other sandwich rolls were still soft enough to use for sandwiches so DH had some leftover pulled pork on one and I made sandwiches for lunch on two days, but I ended up dipping into a glass of milk to soften the bread a bit. The big girls got a kick out of that and thought I was So Silly!
  • I also tried making croutons for the first time. I used one of the whole grain loaves and they didn't turn out well. I think I'll try again with white bread & I'll post about that whole process another day.
  • Last night we had french toast for dinner (DH wasn't eating at home) using a loaf of the whole grain bread. It worked much better as french toast than as croutons! It was so yummy we used a second loaf this morning for more french toast.
  • We have had soup for dinner twice this week and eaten bread along with it, dipping it in the broth.
  • I also have been enjoying a few slices dipped in olive oil and basalmic vinegar as an afternoon snack this week.
  • A friend also suggested making bread crumbs - thanks Christina! - so I'm planning to try those, too.
Do you have any other ideas on how to use this bread up?
I'll post about the bread crumbs, croutons, & yummy appetizers the first week of May - I'll be out of town so I thought I'd load up a "kitchen week" during my absence.

Katie

1 comment:

  1. I made bread crumbs while my mom was here - I sliced them up into ~3/4" cubes. I seasoned with butter and garlic to make croutonesque things. I baked them in the oven and then put them in plastic bags. I have used them with soup, salad and in recipes that call for breadcrumbs or cracker crumbs (crushing when appropriate).

    Easy to make when I'm in the kitchen doing something else (usually washing bottles) and easy to use up.

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So, what do you think?