Croutons

Long time ago, when my husband had an averse palette for salad as a full meal, I started using croutons as a tempting factor. Eventually, he fell in love with salad and I reduced the use of croutons. Why to increase calorie count when you eat salad for health reasons? Although salads are fine, but we still prefer to have croutons in soups. Normally, I buy ready packet from store but I hate to use them for once and remaining of them getting stale. 

So I thought why not to try at home from leftover bread. I buy fresh loaf quite often. How much I love the freshness of it, it hurts to see half of it going to trash after just one use. Since we have a rule that we would eat processed food made out of plain flour only once a week and we mostly stick to it; I cannot use it again in meal. So this time I made croutons out of leftover loaf. Not only they are cheap but also way more fresh and tasty than those from the packet. You can make them in almost no time and store them in air tight container for about a month. And more importantly, this turned out to be my little one's favorite snack :).

Preparation Time: 5 Minute

Cooking Time: 30 Minute

Ingredients

Leftover bread

Olive oil

Parsley

Red pepper flakes

Garlic powder

Salt and Pepper

Procedure

1. Cut bread in cubes. Cut off the crusts if using regular sandwich bread

2. In a large bowl, mix olive oil, spices and herbs

3. Toss in bread cubes and coat them well

4. Arrange cubes in a baking sheet in single layer and toast at 300 F for 10-15 minute or until they become light brown and crispy

5. Store in air tight container once cool down

Patties from leftover Khichdi/વધેલી ખીચડીના મૂઠિયા

This dish is the best example of how something tasty can be created from leftover dish. Whenever my mom would make khichdi, the next day morning she would make these મૂઠિયા as a side dish for lunch. And she literally had to hide them from me and my brother otherwise we would finish them before lunch time. When I was working in Mumbai, when all roommates were tired, khichdi would be our dinner menu. And then I started making these for next day breakfast and my roomies loved them. Instead of મૂઠિયા , this time I shaped them as small patties to reduce cooking time and bring crispier texture.

Make 25-30 small patties

Preparation Time: 10 Minute

Cooking Time: 20 Minute

Ingredients

1 cup leftover khichdi

½ cup coarse wheat flour *

¼ cup Handvo/Dhokla flour **

¼ tsp turmeric powder

¼ tsp red chili powder

¼ tsp ginger paste

¼ tsp chili paste

1 tsp yogurt

½ tsp oil

½ tsp mustard seeds

½ tsp fenugreek seeds

Salt

Oil for shallow frying

* Flour used to make શીરો/લાપસી. If you do not have this one, use ભાખરીનો લોટ

** This can be substituted with coarse wheat flour.

Procedure

1. Mix both flours and sieve with oil

2. Mix khichdi with the flour and add turmeric powder, chili powder, ginger-chili paste, salt and yogurt

3. Mix well and form soft dough

4. Do not add water. If required, wet your palms to knead the dough

5. Divide dough into small balls and shape each ball like a Pattie. If mixture sticks to your hand apply little oil on your palms

6. Heat oil in skillet. Add fenugreek seeds and mustard seed. Add patties and cook them on both sides until golden brown