My journey to find stale goodies was quite a success and oddly enough it has nothing to do with saving money, although it certainly works out that way. People often don’t see that value that is right in front of them.
For example, many years ago, I offered to clear a friend’s undeveloped property of a variety of boulders, mostly Serpentine, Shale and a few rather large rocks of many hundred pounds full of zinc ( we used to have a lot of active zinc mines in this area ). He accepted and I know he felt a bit like Tom Sawyer conning his friends into painting his fence for ‘fun’, until he saw the boulders utilized in my yard.
I feel the same way about so many products that still have culinary viability in a new production. Incorporating prior culinary treasures into new wonders is not only fun, but it is practical and economical. This was the key to the early chef’s success!
Fortunately for bread pudding makers, there are always bakeries that have something they can’t sell… funny how that works. Now, I have enough to make my bread pudding dessert on Sunday. In case you are wondering, those are banana muffins and I am surprised they didn’t sell. I find having many different textures adds a lot to the pudding.
Bon apetitte!