We’ve had an email from Milly:

I know about making breadcrumbs with stale bread but is there anything that can be done with bread that’s gone a bit mouldy? I don’t mean eat it of course but compost it?

Obviously the best thing to do is avoid it going mouldy in the first place – freeze it if you don’t have time to use it up or turn it into breadcrumbs there and then. But sometimes loaves have a tendency to turn in a blink of an eye so it’s harder to avoid.

Bread is one of those things that some people compost and others don’t. It will break down quite quickly but in an open, slow going compost heap, it might attract vermin to the pile even quicker. It’s also not going to add that much goodness to the heap either so you might decide it’s not worth the risk. But then what do you do with it instead?

Any suggestions? Do you compost bread?

(Photo of non-moldy bread because looking for a photo of moldy bread was making me too queasy!)

Yesterday, over on my new growing/cooking/making/frugal blog The Really Good Life, I discussed my love affair with slow rise/no knead bread. It’s really frickin’ ace – it doesn’t take much effort, reduces our food waste, is cheap in itself & stops us spending money in other ways too – and most importantly, tastes great. However, at the moment, we’re not making the best use of our oven while we’re baking it – meaning we’re wasting energy and therefore money.

The recipe needs the oven to be hot (230C/450F/Gas mark 8) and in addition to the 40-50 minute cooking time, it needs to be well pre-heated (the cast iron casserole dish needs to be sizzling or the bread will stick) – so a lot of heat for a long time. We don’t generally eat enough bread to warrant making multiple loaves at once so I try to use the other space for other things. I’ve made scones/biscuits a few times and we nearly always have egg shells that need baking before crushing & returning to the chickens as grit.

Any other suggestions for things I could cook/bake alongside the bread? It’s not a huge oven and the casserole for the bread takes up quite a bit of space but there is a spare rack for things no more than 6cm/3″ high, a narrow strip next to the casserole, and the oven floor too.

(We usually bake mid-morning so we have cooled fresh bread for sandwiches at lunchtime. Since I’m usually working then, I don’t have a lot of time to make things from scratch and also it’s not a suitable time to make things that need to be eaten immediately after cooking. The oven is too hot for slow-cooking anything for lunch/dinner. Any suggestions would be welcome but suggestions taking these points into account would be especially great!)

We’ve had an email from Sara:

Hi. I saw everyone’s great ideas about bread bags the other week but we don’t get sliced bread, we get baguettes and the stuff baked in the shop which come in film rather than plastic bread bags. Can that be recycled too?

Ooh, good question. I’m not 100% sure what type of plastic that is – I’ve sent emails to a couple of supermarkets to see if they know so can advise further. It’s maybe cellophane – and if it is, it’s biodegradable. Anyone know?

As for reuses though, it’s not as smooth and, for what of a better word, floppy as the LDPE/number 4 plastic used for pre-packed bread – but because of that, it would be better to use as a lightweight packaging material (it would scrunch, not crush flat). It’s not as pretty as the plastic wrap used on bouquets but there might be some overlap in the reuses.

Any other suggestions?

I can’t believe we’ve not featured this already. We’ve covered stale bread, bread bag tags, how to make a bread bin recycling old stuff, and what to do with an old bread machine pan but not the bags that pre-sliced loaves come in.

Most pre-wrapped loaves (in the UK at least) come in LDPE bags – low-density polyethylene, ie, plastic number 4. They can be doorstep recycled in some places (check your local guidelines) and can be included with carrier bags at some collection spots.

But how can they be reused first? The most simple reuse is, of course, as a sandwich bag – but anything more interesting or creative?

(Photo by Richard George)

We’ve had an email from Lyndall, saying:

hi, i was wondering if anybody knew what to do with bread tags. i hate throwing them away, but i don’t know what else to do with them. would welcome any suggestions.

We don’t really have them over here these days – shops seem to prefer those little sticky things that lose their stickiness (and therefore ability to seal the bag) after one opening but then still manage to attach themselves to your shoes/socks/cat and refuse to come off no matter how much you shake your foot/cat.

Anyway… bread tags/clips. I suspect they could just be reused as general plastic bag seals around the kitchen – but any other suggestions?

(Photo by Bando26)