super sapid snack: Croutons!

I have a hard time using up certain products that I buy from the grocery store and I always feel bad as their due date expires and I trash my food and... my money.

My worst products have been, milk and bread.  I just don't use them up in time.  The solution I found for my milk issue was to buy organic milk that has doesn't expire as fast as the other.  I just bought some yesterday (April 2) and it doesn't expire until May 12.  Surely I can consume a half gallon of milk before then.  Its a little more expensive, but I end up saving because I don't waste it.  

Ok, so the bread issue.  My solution is to make it into croutons.  Yep, I love them and eat them like crackers.  I can crush the croutons to make some bomb Chicken Parmesan.  And I don't waste my bread.  Plus... I get to use some of my herbs from my garden and experiment (if you would talk to my mother you would know this is a huge plus for me, in my baby book she wrote she thought I would end up a scientist.)

This recipe seems to work well

1. Preheat oven to 300.
2. Cut bread into desired square size.  
3. Cover the bottom of the pan with olive oil and desired spices (ahem... garlic salt!)
4. Toss in the bread crumbs and give another shower of olive oil.   Enough to make sure each bread crumb gets some.  If you want to sprinkle more spices now is the time to do so.
5. Bake at 300 for about 45 minutes depending on how dark you like your croutons.
6. Let them cool completely before putting them in a ziplock.  
7. Eat in the next week and a half or put them in the freezer for later.  

Let me know if you have any other great ideas!  Someday soon I'm going to try using them in my mom's meatball recipe for the bread crumbs.