Stale Bread

The Slow Food Snail au pain- that's a lot of stale bread!

With the Picky Eater out of the house our level of bread consumption has been significantly reduced, but that hardly deters the grocery shopper from picking up a loaf or two a week. For someone who grew up on Wonder Bread, casually choosing between Acme, Semifreddi, Grace Bakery or La Brea at any of the local food emporiums seems equivalent to gathering gold nuggets that are just strewn on the ground.

While we used to have a manageable quota of leftover bread, mainly pesky baguettes, getting hard and dry, we have now worked ourselves into crisis mode- with stern orders for "no more bread!" shouted every time I go out the door. (Not a very effective deterrent.)

So, what can be done? Enter several delightful ways to deal with your stale bread, dependent only on what else you have floating around the kitchen, and the limit you want to put on your caloric consumption. For the minimalist there are what we call garlic croutons- easy to make and so yummy to eat that they disappear like proverbial hotcakes at our house:

Garlic Croutons (more accurately described as 'Garlic Toasts')

12  Baguette size 1/2"-thick slices of bread, pieces from large loaves should be cut in half or thirds
2-4 Tb olive oil
2-4 Tb butter
1-2 cloves garlic
(Can you tell that this is an improvisational recipe?)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Press the garlic through a garlic press into a microwavable 1 or 2 cup measuring cup or bowl. Add the olive oil and butter. Heat 30 seconds or so, until the butter is melted.

Use a pastry brush to brush both sides of the cut bread with the garlic mixture, and place them on a cookie sheet. Bake for 5-7 minutes on one side, turn the croutons over and bake them on the other side for about the same length of time- they will brown on the underside.

Cool at least slightly before eating, although at our house they magically evaporate in minutes. If you have any left, eat them with salad, soup, almost anything. Best eaten the same day they are made- the Picky Eater's dad says that if you're a fan of cold pizza for breakfast, then you'll like day old croutons.

Variation: For an extra special treat you could sprinkle the tops with grated parmesan and run them under the broiler until the cheese melts and browns- Yum!!

French Toast
Always the first line of offense with stale bread, at least during those long lost happy Sundays when the Picky Eater ate something besides Nutz over Chocolate Luna bars for breakfast.

We usually just punt on this, but here's a real recipe, with a few additions, from Marion Cunningham's 1979 edition of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook.


3 eggs
2 Tb sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c. milk
6 slices of stale bread- anything except something savory
1-2 Tb butter
Maple syrup

Beat the first six ingredients together in a shallow bowl- a pie pan works well. Soak each piece of bread in the egg mixture, turning once.

Heat 1 Tb of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Cram as many slices of egg soaked bread in the pan as possible. Cook, browning on each side and making sure that the bread slices are no longer soggy. If the bread is browning too much before the inside is cooked, turn down the heat. Add butter as needed for additional batches of bread.

Serve with maple syrup. Serves 3 + people, depending upon their appetites.

As an alternative to guard duty at the stove, you can make Baked French Toast, but it tastes best if assembled the night before you want to bake it. So, which is it- advance planning or standing facing the stove? Baked French Toast is also a good strategy if you're making French Toast for more than two or three people- no cooking shifts & everyone gets to eat together.

Baked French Toast
Retrieved from Epicurious.com, an anno domini 2000 Gourmet recipe, also with alterations.

8-10 1"-thick slices of stale French bread or challah
1/4 c. butter, softened
3 eggs
1 2/3 c. milk
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
3 Tb brown sugar

Butter a 9"x13" baking dish. Generously butter one side of each slice of bread and arrange them in the baking dish, squeezing to fit.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour the egg mixture over the bread. Cover and refrigerate until the bread has absorbed the egg mixture, at least one hour or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and remove the casserole from the refrigerator while the oven is heating.

Sprinkle the bread with the brown sugar. Bake, uncovered in the middle of the oven until the bread is puffed and the top is golden, about 30-45 minutes.
Serve immediately with syrup or jam.

Panzanella
 I spend a lot of my life feeling guilty because I don't really like lettuce salads unless they are full of good stuff like blue cheese and nuts, and doused in vinaigrette. So, it has been a mental relief (and a boon to my stale bread supply) to stuff myself on bread based Italian Panzanella salads, and at least feel like I'm getting some vegetables down my gullet while also satisfying my lifelong love affair with carbs.

The basic ingredients for Panzanella are stale bread, fresh tomatoes, onions, olive oil, and vinegar. This base is enhanced with fresh herbs like basil or parsley, and whatever else is hanging around your refrigerator or cupboard. Purists say that the tomatoes should be vine ripened; but, trust me, while I would never use canned tomatoes or those sad specimens that you see in the store in January, you can make a perfectly respectable Panzanella with less than stellar tomatoes.


America's Test Kitchen also went through their usual gyrations to determine how to make Panzanella properly. They focused on making sure that the bread was nice and hard by toasting it in the oven, and then letting the salad sit for at least 10 minutes before serving so that the bread cubes could absorb the tomato juices. Now, it is true that I have been know to toast and even singe fresh bread to dry it out for Panzanella, I don't really have the moral fortitude to let it sit before I eat it. In fact one of the aspects I really like is the random flavors of the bread cubes- some are still crunchy, some are soaked in balsamic vinegar  or olive oil, and the ones at the bottom of the bowl are always totally soggy.

Anyway, enough pontification. Here's a rough recipe:

For one or two people

2-3 slices dry country style bread, cut in big cubes
4 medium or larger ripe tomatoes, cored and cubed
2 green onions or one shallot or 1/4 of a red onion, finely chopped
1 c. cubed hothouse cucumber (or other vegetable)
6 basil leaves, snipped or shredded or chopped fresh parsley, or 1/4 tsp. dried Mediterranean herb mixture
1-2 Tb balsamic vinegar
2-3 Tb olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Put the bread in a bowl and then add the vegetables and herbs. Combine gently with a rubber spatula. Drizzle on the olive oil and vinegar and gently toss to mix. Make sure to add enough olive oil to flavor everything. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

These salads are incredibly flexible. During what the Picky Eater calls my "obsession" with Panzanella this summer (it has been my main meal at least 3-4 times a week for the last six weeks) I have added these items to the basic salad:
cucumber, shelled edamane, sausage chunks, shrimp, tuna, olives, goat cheese, bell peppers, garbanzos, roast chicken, hard-boiled eggs, red onion, etc.

The other night I used some stale rosemary/onion Pizza Bianca that my cooking buddy Roberto made last weekend. It was totally yummy, and even easier than usual, because I didn't have to chop any onion!!

Really traditional contadini recipes (sorry, I was just dying to use that word) call for thick slices of bread to be soaked in water, squeezed and crumbled into the salad bowl. Try this method if it appeals to you.

Now, doesn't it feel good to have one less small cross to bear in life? The stale bread quandary solved!!