So, being a tight-fisted Yorkshire woman, I'm always trying to find ways to cut food waste in our house. One of the things I've thrown away most of in the past is bread, but in these belt tightening times I have been thinking about ways I could use it up instead.
Why not give some of these a go?
Use it to bulk out mince in burgers or meatballs; break it into small pieces and soak in cold water for a few minutes. Squeeze out the water and add the bread to pork, chicken beef or lamb mince with seasoning and herbs and spices of your choice. shape into burger or meatball shapes and fry, grill or oven bake until cooked through.
Croutons; chop the bread into 2cm squares, place on a baking tray, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with mixed herbs, toss to make sure the bread is coated. Bake in a 190/gas mark 5
oven until golden brown. Use in salads or soup. These will keep for a week in an airtight container.
Breadcrumbs; whizz your bread up in a blender, if you don't have one use your cheese grater. you can use these to coat fish or chicken(dip in flour then egg, then breadcrumbs) or as a crunchy topping for a pasta bake.
Bread and butter pudding; here's a recipe from allrecipies for a basic pudding, you could swap the sultanas for chocolate chips if you fancied.
100g sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 slices of any bread
Butter
3 handfuls sultanas
500ml milk
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 190 C / Gas mark 5. Lightly grease a baking dish.
Mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
Butter 5 slices of bread, cut in half.
Layer the bread in the dish adding a handful of sultanas and the sugar mix as you go, covering each slice.
Mix the milk and eggs together and whisk.
Pour over the bread and leave to absorb for 10 minutes.
Bake in the oven for 35 to 45 minutes, until the pudding is set and browned.
* tip- it looks like you have added too much milk, you haven't. This pudding has lots of sugar, it tastes bloody good though!! The drier the bread, the more butter I put on.