What to do with stale bread

add garlic of course!

I hate keeping bread in the refrigerator.  In fact, I don't like keeping most things in the fridge unless they absolutely have to be there...bread, fruit, onions, potatoes, etc etc.  But the upshot of this is that I end up with a lot of either moldy or stale bread.  Now, try as you might, there's just nothing to be done with moldy bread...and I'm pretty sure that's the bad kind of mold, so chuck that shit right out.  But stale...it just seems so wasteful!  Now if I was feeling frisky I guess I could make a bread pudding, but considering I rarely crave sweet things and pretty much always crave garlic, this makes much more sense.

Garlic Bread

1 loaf stale bread, preferably a baguette

1 stick butter

garlic powder

assorted herbs such as oregano, basil, chives, thyme, rosemary, etc.

Melt the butter in the microwave until liquid

Add the herbs to the butter

Slice the bread lengthwise

Spoon the herb butter mixture over both sides of the cut bread.  Sprinkle liberally with the garlic powder.

Close the two halves of the bread and wrap tightly in tinfoil

Bake at 375 for approximately 20 minutes or until the bread begins to be toasted.

UPDATE for the lazy: Garlic Toasts

slice stale bread and lay out on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with chopped garlic.  Put under the broiler for about 3-5 minutes (keep an eye out though, they'll burn really quickly).  These go really well with a white bean dip.