wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (07/25/84)
I would like to solicit either recipes or general suggestions for the use of already-baked and leftover bread, either stale or fresh, in main dishes, casseroles, or vegetable concoctions. I am NOT interested in dessert recipes; bread pudding is the common usage here (my wife has an old family recipe for chocolate bread pudding that is great -- the tradition in her family, back on the farm, was to make a crock of this pudding and a crock of whipped cream, then stuff yourself until you bloated). What I am looking for is ways to use leftover bread, including rye, wheat, and other non-sweet variety breads, as the carbohydrate ingredient instead of rice, potatoes, or suchlike in a main dish, or adding it for thickening or texture to vegetables, or maybe making it into a dough for crusts or toppings. It is sort of common hereabouts to use white bread in cooked tomatoes, for example. I tried something in this line as an experiment last night. I took about 8 slices of leftover rye bread and diced them. I prepared two cups of chicken boullion (I would have used beef, but chicken was all I could find), and added to it some dried mixed vegetables and dried minced onion, garlic powder, tabasco, and worcestershire sauce. I mixed in the bread, and stirred it into a sort of mush. I then was going to cook some ground beef and layer it in a casserole, but couldn't find the beef I thought I had, so threw in some leftover cooked sloppy-joe (basically flavored ground beef), stirred it all together, and put it in a loaf pan. It would have been better to bake it in a regular oven, to get it crusty, but it is hot now, so I microwaved it for a while. It was edible, but nothing fantastic. I'm going to try frying the leftover bit as a patty to see how that works. Anyway, I solicit your postings as to this sort of thing. We seem to continually have half-loaves of bread left until we feed them to the birds; I'd like to get some good out of these. Will Martin
eac@drutx.UUCP (CveticEA) (07/27/84)
A few suggestions regarding bread:
1. Keeping bread in the freezer will greatly reduce the amount left over.
I have found no ill affects doing this. You just remove the number of
slices you need and either thaw them in the microwave, or toast them
directly.
2. Dry left over bread crusts and then save them in a canister.
3. The dried bread can be easily converted in to bread crumbs as needed.
4. Use dried bread in course chunks as an addition to meat balls and meat
loaf.
5. Use dried bread in course chunks to make stuffing ten times better than
the box mix variety.
6. To dry bread: Here in Colorado leaving it out on the counter will do
the job in half a day. You can speed the process (or in high humidity
areas) by putting slices on a baking sheet in the oven (200 degrees).
Betsy Cvetic
ihnp4!drutx!eac