DELICIOUS HOMEMADE GARLIC + PARMESAN CROUTONS

Anybody who knows me, knows I am a carb fiend. It's a problem, I know, but it inevitably cannot be stopped so I might as well roll with it. Anybody who knows me also knows I try to eat pretty healthy, as in I try to limit how many ingredients are in the food I buy from the store and my parents cut anything with hydrogenated oil (HO) out of our diets when I was six. That being said, it can be pretty difficult to find foods I like that are reasonably healthy and don't contain HO (ESPECIALLY the carbs)!

Whenever I can, I try to cook things from scratch which can get pretty tedious and lead to a dish pileup in my small apartment sink, but it truly is worth it. Plus, what's better than making something delicious without any help from the storebought stuff and then having your friends and family go crazy over it; am I right?

So the other night, my family and I were making dinner and I made a terrifically colorful salad and decided it needed some croutons to top it off. Well, we didn't have any croutons but we did have a small bit left of a loaf of Pugliese bread from Costco. I whipped together a few ingredients and in about 15 minutes, I had some delicious and relatively healthy croutons! Not only can you save money by making a large batch at home as opposed to buying the bagged croutons from the stores, but trust, friends and family really do go crazy over them too. ;)

Here's the super simple recipe I use, and let me know how these turn out for you and what kind of salad you topped them off on (or if you were like me, and couldn't help eating a few here and there without a salad)!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

Oven set to 375 degrees

Cookie sheet with aluminum foil on it (for easy cleanup)

Medium bowl, preferably with a top

Preferred loaf of bread (I used Pugliese)

Salt

Pepper

Olive Oil (About 3-4 tablespoons)

Garlic Salt

Fresh grated parmesan

THE PROCESS:

Start by pouring the olive oil into the bowl. Add salt, pepper, and a bit of grated parmesan (don't add the garlic salt just yet).

Cut up the bread into slices, and then cut it into cubes from these slices. These cubes don't have to be perfect and can be whatever size you prefer your croutons to be.

Put all of the cubes into the bowl and place the top on it. Shake the bowl furiously and thoroughly to make sure all of the bread is coated with a bit of olive oil. Then open it back up and sprinkle the garlic salt on top and I like to add some more parmesan at this point. Place the top back on and shake again (add more olive oil if you need).

Dump all the coated cubes on the cookie sheet and spread them out (they can be touching), and then sprinkle a bit more parmesan and garlic salt over all of them if you'd like.

Place the cookie sheet in the oven for 7 and a 1/2 minutes and then mix them all up with a wooden spoon or whatever utensil you have and place it back in the oven for another 7 and 1/2 minutes. Once this is done, you can take them out and let them cool for a few minutes or leave them in the oven for 2 minute incremements at a time until you reach your desired crispiness!

So that's it for this simple recipe! Thanks for reading. xx

Karina

#photo #food #diy #homemade #inthekitchen