Homemade Croutons
A skill essential to homesteading is using the most of everything. The wife often chuckles at me when I tell her to save the container that the peanuts came packaged in, or not to throw away that box because I might be able to use it for something in the garage. Granted, I don’t have unlimited space so there is a need to have a strong feeling about a use in the immediate future before I keep it. Otherwise, I would find myself with nothing but boxes and boxes of…well…boxes! One of my favorite things to do, to use all of something, is to make homemade croutons; for salads or soups, homemade croutons are the perfect finishing touch. They are even fun to snack on sometimes.
We make all of our own bread for daily use around here. Several years ago, we decided that it was time to move past the bland Styrofoam type of bread that you buy at the grocery store, and make our own bread every two or three days. It wasn’t that much more work than going to the store every two or three days and buying it. Most of the time we use a bread machine, but every now and then we use the oven. The goal would be to use the oven in the winter when it helps heat the house and the machine in the summer when we want to keep the house cool, but that doesn’t always work out so well.
By hand or by machine, we often found ourselves with a heel of bread that no one really wanted to eat unless they had
Cutting up the Bread
to. While there was often a fight over who got the heel when the loaf was right out of the oven, this never seemed to be the case when the loaf was three days old. At first I started turning the leftover bread into crumbs for use as breading and in meatballs and meatloaves and we still do that some of the time. I’m not sure what finally clicked that made me realize that these would be perfect for croutons but eventually it did. It might have actually been one of the wife’s creations. Regardless, we’ve never regretted it.
Garlic Onion Croutons
- 4 cups of Diced Bread Heels. (6-8 loaf ends usually. Save them in freezer until you have enough.)
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 Clove of Garlic Minced
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Paprika
- 1/2 tsp Onion Powder
- 1/2 tsp Oregano
Preheat oven to 400ºF. Slice Bread into 1/2″ cubes. Heat oil and garlic in oven on deep cookie sheet. Remove cookie sheet from the oven and toss the bread cubes to evenly coat them in the hot oil and garlic mixture. Sprinkle the spices over the bread cubes.
Unbaked Cubes - Ready to Season
Reduce oven setting to 300ºF and immediately put cubes back in the oven. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes until just golden brown. Turn/toss cubes to evenly coat and bake a further 3-5 minutes. Store in an air tight container. The goal should be to toast as much moisture out of the bread cubes as possible.
Serve over salad or soup.
