Waste Not Wednesday

As I have been thinking about food wastage, and trying to waste less for the good of our finances and good of the environment, I decided that this is the week to do the breadcrumbs.

I've been putting it off, you see.  Such a chore.  The foodprocessor actually does all the work!  I just have to be nice to it and not put too much bread in at once.

Boyo throws his crusts out to the birds, but I usually try to save mine seeing as it is fairly expensive, nutrious bread to be just giving away to the local wildlife (who, incidentally, are very well-fed by our back neighbour so need nothing more from me!).  And no, I have not been able to bring myself to eat the crusts as yet.  One thing with my homemade spelt bread is that the crusts are rather chewy.

So here's what I used the crumbs for:

Tuna Mornay.  Very easy!  My recipe originally came from a Junior Cook book, but I found it a bit complicated, so I made a lazy-woman's version. 

Like this: make a white sauce in a pot on the stove (1/4c flour with 60g butter, melted, then you VERY gradually and slowly, while stirring constantly, add 2cups of milk while cooking it on a medium to low heat - it kind of thickens itself as you go).  Add a diced onion and a cup of defrosted frozen peas (or corn, or celery, or whatever!),  flaked tuna (large 425g tin) with its brine or spring water, salt and pepper, and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg.  Pour it all into a greased dish.  Sprinkle with breadcrumbs (1-2cups depending on how generous you are feeling or how many bags of them you have to use up in the freezer!), then sprinkle with cheese (I was lazy and just added the cheese to the tuna mix!).  Bake.  Maybe for 40mins?  Eat.  Yummy.  See, I told you it was easy.

Note to self: Next time, put the dish on the bottom rack of the oven.  The top one cooked the breadcrumbs a bit more than I like.  Crunchy.  Still very edible, but it can be improved!

Now, I'm wondering what else I can use breadcrumbs for.  Seeing as I just put over 10cups of them in my freezer.  Not a lot of room in my freezer, so I don't really want them staying there terribly long. I do have a salmon and breadcrumb dish I can make, but it would be nice to have at least one more easy, healthy option to use up all these breadcrumbs!  Anyone have any ideas?

Amy