A Frugal Breakfast Just Became -- CHEAPER!

Pancakes are, I think, one of the most dirt-cheap breakfasts you can serve your family. Six ingredients, and they think they are getting a real good treat. Now I can go one better, instead of regular pancakes, how about Bread Crumb Pancakes? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time "selling" the heels of bread around here. So I stick them in the freezer. And I use them for ... nothing, actually. I get a big bag of crusts that I do nothing with, then I end up tossing them after a while, when they are all dried out and freezer burned.

But not anymore. I have found a way of using those bread crusts (mostly from my homemade bread, too!) in Bread Griddle Cakes. The recipe is from an old Fanny Farmer recipe book:

Bread Griddle-cakes

1¹/₂ cups fine stale bread crumbs (just swirl them in the blender)
2 eggs
1¹/₂ cups scalded milk (I just used it out of the fridge, no scalding)
¹/₂ cup flour
2 tablespoons butter (melted)
¹/₂ teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder

Add milk and butter to crumbs, and soak until crumbs are soft; add eggs well beaten, then flour, salt, and baking powder mixed and sifted. Cook same as other griddle-cakes.

Now for the $64,000 question, how do they taste? They taste like FRENCH TOAST!! Yum-O! (to quote Rachael Ray). Seriously, you could sprinkle a little powder sugar over them, instead of syrup, and really make it frugal. Or fresh raspberries from the brambles outside, or applesauce, you get the drift.

Good, cheap and easy.