Those leftover bread crusts (Tip Sheet Thursday)
I don't know about your kids, but mine never met a crust they liked. Not only do they leave the crusts behind on their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they won't even eat the crust at the edge of a piece of pizza.
Of course, the crust is said to be the healthiest part of a piece of bread. And in these times, who wants to waste all that crust?
Fortunately, I found a few tips for using up crusts at helium.com, which advises keeping a bag for your crusts in the freezer. Here are a few ways the site recommends using them:
--Make sweet or savory croutons.
--Use instead of French bread to top French onion soup.
--Make stuffing. (I'm not sure about the Pineapple Stuffing the site describes, but you could use crusts to make any kind of stuffing or strata. And because the bread would soak up liquid, your kids might not even notice it was once the dreaded crust.)
--Use in meatballs or meatloaf.
And if you want to make a cute crustless sandwich without resorting to Uncrustables, our friend Annelies of Lunch Nugget shows how to do it here.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
For those who don't like to prepare alot of fried foods (me), a nice alternative could be to crumble & season the crust and use it to coat chicken cutlets, pork chops, fish fillets, etc.
Pop them in the oven and dinner is ready.
Plus you save a few $$$ on the pre-packaged stuff.
Posted by: Allison | January 15, 2009 1:37 PM
My mother-in-law always had little packages of buttered bread crumbs in her freezer ready to top a dish. You could make them from leftover crusts. But really, Kate--who first started cutting off those crusts? My kids always ate the crusts and never whined about it.
Oh, believe me, it wasn't my idea. I often don't cut them off, but one way or another, they're always left behind.
Posted by: Dahlink | January 20, 2009 6:54 AM
My dear mother used to say that the crust was where all of the vitamins were. I've always wondered how the vitamins migrated to the edges. Must have something to do with the heat of the oven.:-)
Posted by: RayRay | January 21, 2009 2:22 PM
Funny- I just took a picture of my sandwich to send to my boyfriend. Why? Because I'm using the crust-heavy end piece of the loaf, which often gets left behind in the bread bag and thrown away once stale. I never understand this- the crusty end slice is just as tasty as the inner pieces! Also, German studies have shown that the crusts contain highly beneficial antioxidants. So don't cut crusts when you're craving carbs!
Posted by: Sailu | January 23, 2009 11:51 PM