Things to do with Left Over Bread (Besides Feeding it to the Ducks).

In France we often have lots of left over bread because real French bread has no additives. I am loath to throw it away, but it can be past its best by the evening of the day we bought it.  You can keep sliced bread in the freezer and it will make passable toast, but pain, baguettes, boules, etc do not freeze well, so I am making a collection of recipes which will use up the left over bread lurking in the kitchen. It salves my conscience as I have heard too many stories about rationing (in England) and the Depression (in the USA) to throw it away lightly. I am going to post these recipes as a mini series starting with recipes for breadcrumbs.

Things to do with Breadcrumbs

Gratin topping

Use enough breadcrumbs to completely cover your dish.  Dot with butter and sprinkle  with grated cheese.  Bake in the oven until the topping is golden and crusty. You can use this for anything from macaroni cheese to a casserole.  My favourite is ratatouille.  Covering it with a cheesy breadcrumb topping makes it into a good vegetarian meal.

Panna gritatta

Yum. These are just fried breadcrumbs which can be used to top simple pasta dishes. They give the dish texture. Jamie Oliver makes this by whizzing up bread crumbs, garlic and oil in a food processer then frying it gently in a dry pan. I’m wary of making my food processer smell of garlic, so I whiz up the bread crumbs and then heat the oil in a frying pan with a sliced clove of garlic. I fry the breadcrumbs in the seasoned oil and remove the garlic before serving to avoid overpowering everything. This is good on simple pasta dishes.  I use it on spaghetti with butter and parsley or on spaghetti with anchovies and garlic melted in a frying pan with a little oil.

Stuffed Tomatoes

Somewhere at home I have my late mother-in-law’s recipe for Tomatoes Farcie.  I think it goes like this:

Use one large tomato per person.

Slice each tomato in half horizontally and scoop out the seeds.

Turn upside down and drain on kitchen paper.

Mix breadcrumbs with melted butter and crushed garlic, then add some parsley, finely chopped and salt and pepper to taste.

Stuff each tomato generously so that the stuffing is rounded at the top.

Put in the oven until the stuffing is golden and crispy.

These are lovely served with lamb chops or as a starter on a bed of dark green leaves such as lambs lettuce or rocket. (N.B. You could use this stuffing in courgettes, marrows or peppers.  If you use peppers, you will need to blanch them first and serve them with a tomato sauce. Otherwise they will be quite dry.)

 Brown Tom

This is a recipe for when tomatoes are plentiful.  It consists of brown bread crumbs layered with tomatoes and baked in the oven. It could be a main lunch or supper dish.

You will need:

1 lb sliced tomatoes

1 onion (finely chopped)

Brown bread crumbs (about 4 slices)

Some bacon bits, finely cut up (optional)

Parsley

Basil

Butter

Salt and pepper

A little caster sugar

Method:

Butter an ovenproof dish.

Mix the breadcrumbs, bacon, onion and herbs together.

Make layers of the breadcrumb mixture, then the sliced tomatoes, seasoning them with salt, pepper and a tiny bit of sugar.

Continue until the ingredients are used up and finishing with the breadcrumb layer.

Dot with butter and bake at 200C/400F for 30 to 35 minutes until brown and bubbling.

Stuffing

Hubby never quite makes enough of this as we are all very greedy and there will be an undignified jostle to scrape out the last remaining crumbs from the serving dish.  There are no specific measurements here. This is one to just estimate what is enough of everything.  Soften  some chopped onions in a generous amount of oil and a little knob of butter.   (about 10 minutes)  Add a few chopped sage leaves or a little fresh thyme and some lemon zest to the pan and cook for another minute. Stir all of this into enough breadcrumbs to fill a buttered dish together with a beaten egg to bind the dish together.  Bake at 350 F / 180 C for about 30 minutes or until crusty on the top. We always have this as an accompaniment to a roast, but I think it would be good with poached eggs as well.

Cherry Clafouti

Cherries are bountiful in the markets at the moment, as are apricots, peaches and nectarines.  I bought a kilo of cherries and ate many of them right away, but decided to make a cherry desert for company.  Cherry Clafouti came to mind as it is a classic French dish, not too difficult to make and utterly delicious to eat.

The recipe is based on one from an old copy of The Cookery Year, published by the Reader’s Digest in the 1970s.  I’ve used this book for so many things. It has the best gingerbread recipe I know of and other tasty things.  This book is a great reference book for cooking basics as well as special things like this Clafouti.

To make Cherry Clafouti, you need:

1 ½ lbs of cherries (stoned, if possible)

3 eggs

3 level Tablespoons plain flour

Salt

3 Tablespoons sugar

15 ounce of milk

2 – 3 Tablespoons of butter

Method:

Stone the cherries

Put them into a buttered oven-proof dish

Make a pancake batter by whisking the eggs into the flour and then blending in the sugar, salt and milk.

Pour the batter over the cherries and dot with butter.

Bake at 425 F, 200 C for 25 – 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool to lukewarm. 

Sprinkle over with icing sugar and serve.

This is best served on the day it is made, but don’t worry, there won’t be any left anyway.

Making a Simple, Lined Curtain

The finished curtain, which has only a little fullness.

 

This is a very simple curtain which can be made in an hour or two.  It slides onto a pole, so there is no curtain tape to worry about.  I made this curtain to cover a dormer window and I didn't want fullness, so I cut the width plus turnings.  As I was making this in England for France, I did not want to find that it was not wide enough when I got there, so I added a few inches for luck!

Measure the width of your window and if you want fullness, double this measurement. If you want the curtain to hang straight like a blind, do not double the width.

Add 1 1/2 inches on each side for turnings.

Measure the length of your window and add 8 inches for  top and bottom hems. This will give you a deep hem, but that makes the curtain hang better.

Turn under the sides ¼ inch and press, then edge stitch*.

Turn under another 1” and edge stitch again.

Turn under the top and bottom edges ¼ inch, press and edge stitch.

Turn down the top edge enough to accommodate the pole with another 1/2 " so it slides on easily.

Press and edge stitch.

Turn up the hem the required amount and edge stitch.

If you want the curtain to be unlined, this is all you need to do. Just press it and hang it.

*Edge stitch.  This is simply lining up the presser foot and stitching as close to the edge as possible.  It gives the fabric a nice, crisp finish.

To line the curtain:

I used blackout lining, which my machine does not like, so I did as little stitching as possible.  Because it does not fray, I attached it to the curtain without turning under the top edge. I stitched along the stitching at the bottom of the channel. I then fastened it at the sides by doing an invisible hemstitch.  In fact, I usually hemstitch the lining to the curtain as it is less likely to pull one way or another.

Measure the lining exactly as you did the curtain, but add only 5 inches to the length.

Turn under the sides ¼ “ and then 1 ½ “ and stitch.

Turn under the hem ¼” and then enough so that it is just shorter than the curtain.

Stitch the top of the lining just under the space left for the pole.

Pin and attach the sides of the lining to the sides of the curtain by hand with an invisible hemstitch.

Blackout cannot be ironed, but if you are using lining fabric, press the curtain again. 

A view of the wrong side of the curtain.

Blue and Purple

My very good friend, Sue, always gets the French house ready for us before we arrive.  It is such luxury not to have to unpeel all the plastic wrapping off the furniture, remove bags from lampshades and kitchen utensils and put things in order.  She airs the house and fills it with flowers.

This time I thought she surpassed herself with the arrangement of blue and purple hydrangeas to match the blue and purple throws covering the old sofas in the room we grandly call the ‘library’ – a room which has two book cases.

Blue and purple are such a wonderful combination.  Must remember this when planning the next quilt.