Garlic Croutons

"WOW!! I certainly agree with everyone else but I wanted to share my creative finds with everyone who follows. I had several loaves of French bread in the freezer so I decided to experiment with the ..." See morerecipe. First, to make all batches I cubed the bread, put it in a large, glass measuring bowl with a lid, melted butter in the microwave, mixed in the dry ingredients (except parm cheese), then poured it over the cubes in the bowl. After shaking mixture, I put it on the jelly roll pan, sprinkled on parsely, for color, and baked them. (Be sure to bake until browned. Mine took longer.) I tried a SMALL batch with olive oil, for the heart healthy attempt. I recommend splurging on the saturated fats in butter or ICBINB butter flavored margerine, as I use. The olive oil isn't bad, but the butter is much better. (I also used garlic powder for both garlic batches, mixing it in the melted butter). I put Parmesan cheese on one butter batch and the olive oil batch. I liked the butter batches both ways. The other way I tried it was by mixing in dry, ranch flavored salad dressing, after I poured the butter on the bread cubes. I had to experiment with the quanitity by tasting it often but liked approximately 1/2 pkg Hidden Valley Ranch dry mix to a 3" x 18" loaf of bread. (Sample it first, don't just dump in the quantities I suggest; it may not be to your liking.)I can't wait to find some day old pumpernickle or rye bread to throw in the mix. Sorry for the lengthy review. Thanks for s"

"I've been making homemade croutons for a couple of years (haven't used this exact recipe), and I just thought I'd throw in a couple of tips. I find that the best croutons are made from large, bakery-..." See moretype kaiser rolls (plain ones, of course, not ones with poppy seeds or whatever). . . I just buy a bag of 6 or 8 rolls, use some of them for lunch sandwiches in the first couple of days while they're still soft, and then throw them into the fridge until I'm ready to make croutons. (Croutons are okay if made from fresh bread/rolls but better when the rolls are stale/firm.) I use garlic powder instead of garlic -- the taste ends up evenly distributed . . . just garlic powder and enough butter to coat (although you could add herbs if you wanted as well). Bake on a jelly roll pan lined with foil -- then clean-up is super-easy. And here's the best secret of all (I never would have believed this before I started making my own croutons): once the croutons are done baking, spread them on paper towels to cool . . . and then, once thoroughly cooled, put in a ziploc bag -- your croutons will keep JUST FINE in the cupboard for up to a couple of weeks. You'd think they would mold or do something else gross, but not at all -- so really, throw some croutons in the oven every week and a half or so while you're preparing something else in the kitchen, and you're good-to-go all the time! (My husband became a huge salad fan when I started making croutons a couple of years ago...) :-)"

"No french bread on hand, I used day old Dave's Killer Bread. I also doubled the garlic. Nice and simple for what I needed, but this could be easily modified for a snootier salad. WAY better than the s..." See moretore bought by a mile. NOTE: You can also use extra virgin olive oil in place of the butter."