Monday, January 3, 2011

Olive Oil and Garlic Croutons

Home made croutons 2

So we all made it through another holiday season. Mine was wonderful. Filled with family and friends and lots and lots of laughter. I'm one lucky girl. The New Year year is here and the blogasphere is filled with post after post about everyone New Year resolutions and re-caps of all their posts after over the past year and I'm sorry to tell you....that's not happening here, lol. I do have one resolution, to finally make the time to put a recipe index on the blog. I'm gonna try my darnedest to make that happen.

So back to the holidays past....we filled our bellies up with all sorts of deliciousness. The leftovers in the fridge have finally dwindled down to nothing and I'm ready to get back to "normal" eating again. Now I'm craving...

GREEN!

Ahhh. Green.

Crunchy green salad.

I always crave it after a holiday. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the sweets and pies and cakes associated with them, but a few days after I'm craving veggies and greens.

Home made croutons 1


I always seem to have some stale bread around. This time is was a baguette that was getting a bit hard. I decided it was to become croutons.

No sense wasting a good loaf of bread.

Home made croutons

Making croutons is simple. Honest.

Just dice up some bread. Make sure it's stale. You really can't make croutons with fresh bread.

Heat up a skillet and for every cup of croutons you have heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a clove of garlic.

Throw in a few cups of bread at a time. You don't want to crowd the pan. The bread needs to come in contact with the pan to get nice and brown and crispy. At this point I threw in about a teaspoon of fresh chopped parsley. It looks pretty, lol.

Turn it every few minutes. Don't worry if the garlic starts to get a little too brown. It's just there to give the oil some great flavor.

Once the croutons are nice and browned (about 8 - 10 minutes), take them out and place them on a paper towel lined tray to cool. Repeat with next batch if you have more than a few cups.

Done! Simple home made croutons that are 10 times better then the ones outta the box. My husband was eating them like popcorn!

10 comments:

Blog is the New Black said...

So simple but delicious- great job!

Darcy@SomewhatMuddledMusings. said...

I have the same problem when I make croutons...they rarely make it to a second day because DH munches on them for snacktime!

oneordinaryday said...

Looks wonderful. I always feel a strong pull to vegetable dishes after the holidays too!

Unknown said...

This is a great idea when I have french bread leftover, which we always do from dinners.

Cecilia MontaƱo said...

Oh !! Such a easy and delicious way to make a salad, I was thinking to complement it with some olives. Thank You !

Amy @ The Savvy Kitchen said...

Thanks for sharing all these great recipes! I've started a new cooking blog myself and would love any feedback or comments you can give, so please be sure to check out The Savvy Kitchen at www.savvykitchen.blogspot.com. I look forward to continuing reading your blog in 2011!

~lifedramatic~ said...

Those sound so good Lisa! I always end up letting the bread go too long before I decide to do something with it though. I don't know why I never remember to at least throw the bread in the freezer before it gets moldy... I'm going to have to try harder!

Char

http://lifedramatic.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

yum. it's so hard to eat the other kind once you make homemade.

recipe index? dream come true.
i had to laugh at this, i bought soooo much spring mix at the store this week, i totally get the salad craving!

Holly said...

Croutons are that easy!?! I'm gonna have to give these a try:)

Debbie said...

These look so good. I need to make a salad now!