Last week, I had some neighbors over to help celebrate my husband’s birthday. I had planned to order pizza and salad for the group but then discovered that I had plenty of romaine lettuce to whip together a Caesar salad too. Quickly, I tore up the lettuce, then searched through my pantry until I found all of the ingredients for the dressing. Now for the croutons. I thought I had purchased some a few weeks ago. I am not a fan of croutons, so I rarely have them stocked—to me, most of them taste like herb encrusted styrofoam—so I went on a hunt for that too. Ten minutes later, I was still crouton-less.
I had about 20 minutes until my crowd was due and not enough time to get to the store and back, so I decided to improvise. I hadn’t made sandwiches in weeks, so there was no bread in my house. I looked around my kitchen—could I cut up those gourmet cheese straws someone had given us? Maybe, but a last resort. Multigrain crackers? Wrong consistency. Bagel chips? No, but wait... didn’t I have some everything bagels left over from breakfast?
I quickly diced the bagels into chunks while my oven climbed to 375 degrees. In a bowl, I combined garlic powder, dried herbs and olive oil then tossed the bagels in to coat. Once the oven preheated, I put them on a cookie sheet and crossed my fingers.
Eight minutes later, I had the most beautiful croutons I have ever seen. Crunchy but not too crunchy, brown but not too brown, spiced but not too spicy—they were works of art.
Next time, I’ll opt for onion or parmesan bagels, but I’ve decided that my days of purchasing croutons are over. It’s better for the environment.
