You know those people who get stuck on things? You know, that roommate who plays the same
Hank Williams CD for a month straight, the person who might as well live in a
uniform because they wear the same clothes till they fall apart, and are happy
to eat the same thing for days on end till their husband cries “enough with the
quiche already!”. Yeah, I’m one of those. Right now I’ve been in a serious
Caesar salad kick brought on by a giant wedge of Parm that I bought on
sale. I went through two bags of
croutons before I decided that I better try making them if I was going to
continue to burn though croutons at this rate.
I looked at a number of recipes, and while they all seemed to think they
had some secret, they were all basically the same. I ended up using a very simple one from
Allrecipes.
You will need
6 cups of bread, cubed- about ½ a large loaf of French bread
($3.99 per loaf, $3.99 x .5 loaf = $1.99)
1 stick organic butter ($4.79 per lb, $4.79/4sticks = $1.19)
2 cloves organic garlic, finely minced ($.50 per bulb, $.50/15cloves
(estimate) = $.03 x 2cloves = $.07)
 |
| Bread cubes, ready to toss! |
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over
medium heat. Add the garlic, and cook
for about a minute. Add in bread and
toss until evenly coated. Turn bread
onto a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes or until dry.
 |
| Post tossing- you can see how uneven the butter is. |
That’s what I did, but it’s difficult to get the butter
evenly distributed by tossing in a pan, since the bread just absorbs the butter immediately. Next time I would put them in a large bowl
with a lid and drizzle the butter over and then shake to coat before turning them onto the baking sheet.
 |
| Did you think that was a family sized salad? Nope, that's my lunch. |
Try It
$3.25 for 6 cups
croutons, or $.54/cup
Buy It
$2.49 for 5 cups
of Fresh Gourmet Classic Caesar Croutons, or $.49/cup
Verdict
Croutons are not hard to make, and they’re pretty good. They didn’t stay as crisp as I had expected,
I think because the butter soaked into some more than others and left the
soaked ones with an odd texture. The
store bought croutons are actually cheaper and more delicious, so I need to
either suck it up and Buy It, or
just cool it on the Caesar salads!
NEXT WEEK: Diaper rash cream
NEXT WEEK: Diaper rash cream
i love croutons, and, to me, they "made" the salad. when i thought about the fat content of really good croutons, made with butter, i decided to try a substitute. now a hunk of french bread (sourdough yum) to soak up the last of the dressing works for me.
ReplyDeletedebie
I think the ammount of stale bread in the house affects whether it's worth it to make croutons or not - because it's bread you'd throw out otherwise, and will make the croutons crunchier. Also, you should try adding some italian seasoning - some parsley and thyme at least - to spice it up a little (pun intended).
ReplyDelete