Last week I bought a loaf of delicious artisan Garlic Cheese bread from A Bread Affair. This was my second loaf, and unlike the first that I gobbled up in three days, I could only finish half of this one before it started to dry out.
Marianne suggested that the Garlic Cheese loaf would make tasty croûtons so I stole her idea and made some for my soup.
Make sure you use day old, dried out bread, not stale bread! Stale bread will make stale croûtons! If you can't find an artisan style garlic cheese bread, use a crusty French or Italian bread and add a teaspoon or so of fresh minced garlic to the mix.
4-6 slices of day old crusty garlic cheese bread
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped fine
2 tbsp olive oil
1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Coarsely chop bread into cubes about 1" square. Add to a large bowl.
3. Add Parmesan and parsley to bread in the bowl. Toss together.
4. Drizzle olive oil over everything and toss well to coat bread cubes.
5. Spread bread cubes in a single layer, on an ungreased baking sheet.
6. Bake in oven until crisp, about 20 minutes. This could take longer, depending on volume of pieces, size of cubes and density of bread. Keep an eye on your cubes and remove from oven just as they start to turn golden.
7. Set aside to cool. Store in container with tight fitting lid. Use within a week or so otherwise your croûtons will be stale!
Use on top of salads or soups. They are even tasty enough to eat on their own... although not recommended!
Did I suggest that? Man, I have good ideas ;)
ReplyDeleteI thought we had the end of a loaf of that bread as well, but my sister and her bf polished it off before I could make my own. Jerks.
Also - Thrifty's makes an excellent two cheese & garlic loaf. I'm just saying.