Fwd: Ideal Bite: Dough, a Deer - Born Again Week

May 14, 2009

Ideal Bite <daily

cyndikrall

Thu, 14 May 2009 3:28 am

Ideal Bite: Dough, a Deer - Born Again Week

May 14, 2009

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DAY-OLD BREAD

Dough, a Deer - Born Again Week

If 10,000 Biter families of four eat all the unspoiled food they typically throw away, in a year we'll save a collective $6 million.

On the run from the Third Reich and got seven little mouths to feed? That will bring us back to...day-old bread. Instead of tossing the stale stuff, whip up some delicious bread pudding, bruschetta, soufflÃ©, or French toast. It's a drop of golden sun for your palate.

Less trash = a high note. Less bread means less bread packaging, and even though bread's biodegradable, the bags will take years to decompose in a landfill, where light, moisture, and bacteria are scarce.

Eating on a nun's wages. At the store, day-old bread costs a third to half as much as fresh bread.

Tastes worth singing about. No, really.

Heather uses day-old bread to make a mean bruschetta - just don't tell her to call it "brew-SHEH-tuh."

Check for mold (which isn't good for birds either, BTW) before you use it.

Refresh it - splash some water on the loaf so it's damp on top, and heat it up in a 300-degree toaster oven for about 5 minutes (use the heat left over from baking something else to save energy).

Make bread crumbs - toast it in a 200-degree toaster oven until it's crusty (or let dry while spread out on a flat surface), then use your cheese grater to grate it into bread crumbs.

Make croutons - chop it into big cubes, coat it with organic olive oil, and toast it at 375 degrees 'til dry and golden brown.

Use it in a recipe - try these: Apple Pan Charlotte; Baked French Toast; Cheese, Onion, and Bread SoufflÃ©; Chocolate Bread Pudding; and Panzanella (Tuscan Bread Salad)