Follow the trail of CRUMBS

If you are like me you save every scrap or end of bread or bread product, not to mention that great bread in the clearance aisle!

Of course there is always the obvious of keeping these scraps in a bag in the freezer and when you've accumulated enough, use them for bread stuffings. But, you can squeeze the eagle beyond that!

I had a bag of soft pretzels in the freezer that were really too old to retain the freshness that is necessary for a good soft pretzel. So, I whirled them around in my food processor to make crumbs. Sometimes I season these crumbs with dried herbs from my garden not only for the aforementioned bread stuffing, but for toppings and coatings. Today I did something different.

How about pancakes and/or cookies!

For breakfast this morning I made thesepancakes!

I placed approximately 1 1/2 cups of bread crumbs (that I'd ground up in my food processor) in a bowl. Add 2 eggs (you could also use 4 egg whites or 1/2 cup egg substitute), along with 1/2 cups milk, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 tsp vanilla and a few shakes of cinnamon.

Mix the ingredients together (forgot to take a picture of this!) and cook in a pan just as you would any pancake batter!

Eat with butter, syrup, jam.....any way you would normally enjoy your pancakes. You would never even know they were made with leftover bread crumbs (or in my case a leftover soft pretzel!)

Makes about 8 to 12 pancakes depending upon the size you make them.

BUT....that's not the end of the bread crumb trail!!!

There are COOKIES!!!

This afternoon I made COOKIES with more bread crumbs!

Crumb Cookies

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup coconut

1 cup bread crumbs (or soft pretzel or rolls, etc.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Stir together sugar, coconut and crumbs.

Stir well. Drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 15 minutes just until they start to brown.

These are somewhat similar to a coconut macaroon.

Happy (crumb) trails!