"Sky" > wrote in message
...
> Tonight I made some home-made salad croutons with some fresh sourdough
> (cough, cough!) bread from a local grocery store. The bread was sliced
> then cut into small cubes to make croutons. Baked the small bread cubes
> in a very low oven to get 'stale'. After bread cubes became stale, tossed
> them with EVOO and baked in the oven until toasty brown. Turned out well
> enough, crunchy but rather tasteless. I did consider adding some sort of
> garlic to the croutons, but bleu cheese dressing will be used for the
> salad.
>
> Who makes home-made salad croutons and what is the recipe/method used?
> It'll be interesting to read all the ideas and suggestions
>
> Sky, who's just curious

I despise croutons and nobody in our house eats them but I did used to make
them quite a lot when I was cooking for my in-laws mainly only because they
always seemed to have a ton of stale bread in the house. My husband's aunt
and cousin used to work for a bakery. They would constantly bring over day
old things and with just my MIL and FIL in the house, they couldn't eat it
fast enough. When my MIL was well enough to cook, she would make bread
salad out of it.

Their bread was called Italian bread. It is something foreign to here.
They are in PA. It was a white bread but not soft textured. It was a bit
on the dry side but perhaps because I mostly only saw the day old version of
it. I would cut it in cubes and then give it a good coating of whatever
kind of fat they had in the house. Butter, margarine or if I brought some
in, olive oil. MIL never seemed to keep olive oil even though they were
Italian. Obviously I had to melt the butter or margarine first. From
there, I would season it. Always garlic. My in-laws LOVE garlic. Perhaps
some other herbs and if I had it, maybe a little Parmesan or Romano or
Asiago cheese. I would then toast these in the oven on some cookie sheets
lined with foil. I usually made quite a lot at a time because when we were
there,word would get out and people would often stop by for dinner. I often
would cook dinner for 20 people on the weekend because that many could stop
by. And if they didn't, the leftovers would still get eaten.

If I made these during the week, I made a much smaller amount of them. My
MIL was unable to eat them. She is on a special soft/minced diet. And
while my husband doesn't normally eat croutons at home, he would eat them
when I made them. So when I made a smaller amount, I would just sort of pan
fry the bread cubes in a skillet, again using the same fat and tossing the
seasonings in after they got slightly browned.