Homemade Bread Crumbs

All my life I've been really driven.  I like to work, and I like to work well.  I had a high GPA in college.  At my first job, I completed my work for the day in less than a few hours.  When I became a teacher, I typed out all of my lesson plans including down-to-the-minute time expectations.  If I needed to cut and paste paper documents together, I'd re-type them instead because it looked better.  I loved teaching and working, and now I don't do it anymore.

But, all my life, I've also known I wanted to be a homemaker.  I wanted to stay home with my children once I had them and cherish every minute of that time with them.  Jeremy and I both knew how important this was, and so we worked to make it possible.  And although I miss my job, I wouldn't trade a minute of this time being home to go back to it.  (Okay, maybe a few choice minutes here and there, but you get the picture...)

So, it should come as no surprise to you that I am a driven homemaker now.  Here's what that doesn't mean:  It doesn't mean that I get up and dressed and fed by 8:00 every morning. **snort**  It does not mean my house is always clean, or even usually clean.  It doesn't mean dinner is on the table by 5:00 every day.  It doesn't mean I look like this:

It does mean a couple things.  It means I don't sit around and watch soap operas while Malachi is napping (although sometimes I eat a snack and watch Family Feud).  It means I applied my type A personality a little too much to my early months of child-rearing (i.e. OHMYGOSHHISNAPSAREONLY45MINUTESWHATAMIDOINGWRONG???!!!).  It means I've found new ways to stay involved in the things I love.  And it means I find new projects around the house for myself all the time. 

One of those new projects is making things homemade either to save resources or because it's healthier.  I tried homemade baby wipes, and I will not repeat that!  (If you have tried it and succeeded let me know in the comments - maybe my paper towels weren't good enough quality, but if I'd spent any more I would have paid the same for those as I do buying wipes).  I've been working on homemade artwork for a while (OOOHHHH how I want to have a link there that goes to an Etsy page or something but, sigh, I just haven't gotten that far yet).  Anyways, one thing I do all the time is make homemade bread crumbs.  Now,  if you're like me, maybe you feel like you never use bread crumbs.  I didn't either until I started making them myself.  If a recipe called for them I'd either skip it or leave them out.  Do you remember that little problem I have with leftover chips?  Jeremy and I have the same issue with leftover hamburger and hot dog buns.  I hate wasting them, but I also am really particular about fresh bread.  So we end up with a shelf-full of freezer-burnt buns.  Well, not anymore.

Home-made Bread Crumbs

• Bread

Put all your bread on a cookie sheet.  If you have buns, split them.  You can use any and all variety of random bread.  You can do this with frozen bread or thawed, as long as it's all thawed or all frozen.  You'll see I have quite an assortment of buns in this batch:

Put them in a 300-350ish oven.  The trick here is to keep it warm enough to dry out the bread, but not so hot that the outside gets toasted while the inside stays soft.  I'm not sure how long it takes - maybe 10 or 15 minutes?  Keep your eye on it and when your bread seems pretty dried out (but not brown and crusty), take it out.  Rip it into thirds or quarters and run it through a food processor.  My bread crumbs usually come out somewhat course - I'm not too particular about them all being the same.  If you are, this method may not work for you.  

Dump all the breadcrumbs in a bag and stick it in the freezer.  You can measure out what you need frozen, and I don't bother to thaw it before I cook with it - everything always comes out fine.

Recipes with bread crumbs:
Salmon Cakes with Lemon Dill Mayo
Spiced Oven-Fried Pork Chops