Pan!

Ok, so I'm a freakin' genius. Here is a crouton recipe I made up. I've been on a baking spiritual journey to find myself and suddenly I find our kitchen with a surplus of bread. I had to find some use for all the bread, so here is one idea for croutons I had. Don't throw away old bread! (unless it's moldy) There are so many good uses for it. Put the croutons in salads or soups or just eat by themselves with a yummy cheese like Havarti. The recipe is pretty common sense, but I really liked it so I thought I'd share it.

Homemade Croutons
(Please experiment with any ingredients you want or have handy, this just happened to be the first thing that came to mind. If you find you've improved on it, let me know!)
Makes for about 4-5 salads

1 old baguette (not ancient)
about 1/2 cup of olive oil (extra virgin is best)
about 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
about 1 tsp of dried rosemary
about 1/2 tsp of salt, or to taste
about 1/2 tsp of pepper, or to taste

1.Put oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper in a little pan and put over medium low heat. Let it get really warm, but monitor it so the garlic doesn't burn, otherwise it tastes bitter (if it gets away from me, I just put a little more oil to bring the temp down).
2. While that's on the heat, cut your baguette into little squares or whatever size you want (I did medium squares). Put bread in an oven pan (not cookie sheet), pick your size. Just make sure the bread is close together but not too tight.
3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
4. Once the oil is fragrant and warm pour the oil (including garlic and herbs) over the bread and then toss the bread for a bit to make sure all the little squares are covered in oil. Stick in the oven (middle rack) for 6 min. Take out of oven, swish the croutons around so the they turn over and put back in oven for another 6 min. Let them cool a bit so they harden. Voila! They're done, if they're still too soft for you just put them the oven longer.

Hope this helps someone who was about to throw away a piece of perfectly useful bread.