Hi everyone. I'm not going to beat around the bush. There's a whole lot of waste that goes on in the kitchen and elsewhere and I, for one, am really trying to do something about it. Will you join me by following some of my suggestions and those of Jim Oconnor? Who is Jim Oconnor? Well, he's this guy I met at Starbucks who uses his Starbucks coffee cup three times before throwing it out. He never buys ziploc bags and he taught me to think out of the bag when it comes to using the thick plastic bags that come out of cereal boxes instead. I have dramatically cut down on my ziplocs since meeting him and want to thank him.
As it turns out, Jim is a writer and activist, trying to get clean water to places that truly need it, like Haiti. Please read his post on http://sedonacyberlink.com/?p=886
Thanks, Jim. Jim will be stepping in on TBK from time to time to tell us more about some creative ways we can repurpose and recycle items in our kitchen.
For now, try out this great tip that my sister Zoe gave me. How many of us are "forced" to cut the crust off our kids bread? Although I silently judged kids in elementary school who ate their sandwiches this way, believing it was only precious, rich kids that did this, I now find myself doing it and wasting all that dang bread or worse, eating them myself! I resent having to do it, but not so much anymore because....
Homemade bread Crust Bread Crumbs:
I cut off and save all the bread crusts before making the kids' sandwiches
I place them all in a bag, a recycled cereal bag, and store the bag in the fridge
Once the bag is finally filled with crusts, I bake them at 300 degrees on a foil lined baking sheet for 20 minutes or so until they are full toasted
Let them sit out for a while once they are removed from the oven, season them if you like with salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano what have you, and then process them into crumbs with a food processor or smashing them with a hammer while placed back in the plastic bag. Store in pantry in an airtight container.
Use them to bread chicken or fish, to make a meatloaf,add a little butter or oil to them and top a mac n' cheese with them or any way that you would normally use bread crumbs. Check out the video below to see how to bread a chicken cutlet (and to bid on the Fireball auction item in Montclair). Thanks, Zoe!
