homemade croutons

I love buying those fresh loaves of french bread at the grocery store. Of course, nothing beats making bread at home & smelling up your house with that yummy breadness. 

Breadness?? 

Something about the smell of that bread just leads me to the bakery section!

But despite how much I looove bread, sometimes we don't finish off the loaf & it starts to go stale rather quickly. So what I do is just make that last part of the bread into homemade croutons.

Take the bread & cut it into cubes. 

Sprinkle on a good amount of olive oil. Then sprinkle one whatever herbs & spices you like. 

I usually use Italian seasoning or oregano, garlic salt (which for some reason is missing from the pic) & fresh cracked pepper. Then I sprinkle on some parmesan cheese & give it a good toss. 

Spread it out on a pan & bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. Don't bake too long or you'll have some super crunchy croutons...and not in a good way. I usually just make mine in the toaster oven so I don't have to heat up the entire oven just for some croutons. My toaster oven has become one of my best kitchen friends over the last 2 years.

And after baking the bread you have yummy fresh croutons! Throw 'em in a baggy and they'll keep for several days. I like to put them on top of a grilled chicken salad. I would have a picture but I was too hungry to wait ;) 

Yum!