stale

5 Creative Uses for Stale Cereal

Linsey Knerl — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:36:32 +0000

With five kids in my house, boxed cereal is a staple for breakfast — and, once in a while, even snacks. I’d like to say that we use up every toasted flake of cereal in the most efficient manner, but this is not the case. Depending on the flavor of cereal, some of it goes stale before it can all be eaten. This usually happens with the “healthier” cereal varieties, but I’ve found a few solutions to make sure every bit is used up. (See also: Feeling Flakey: 7 Delicious Corn Flake Ideas)

1. Bread Crumb Substitute

Ranging in price from a dollar to a little over three dollars for six cups, breadcrumbs are something I try to never have to purchase. When I can’t find any clearance bakery items to grind up, I switch to the less-sweet cereal varieties, which work just as well. Just grind them up in your food processor or crunch them up with a rolling pin, and you have the perfect ingredient for mixing into meatloaves or creating a perfect onion ring crust. (Ham balls are actually tastier with sweetened cereal like Frosted Flakes!)

2. Bird Food

Since we have free-range chickens, they are already enjoying some of our healthier scraps. Our flock also really enjoys generic Cheerios, cornflakes, and shredded wheat. You can help kids cover a pinecone with peanut butter, then roll it in a mixture of crushed, unsweetened cereal to create a yummy treat for backyard birds this winter!

3. Craft Supplies

Kids love stringing things, and small hands work well with larger pieces of thread and beads with bigger holes. If you are concerned about kids working with materials that may be a choking hazard, I recommend a generic Cheerio or Fruit Loop type cereal to thread the string through. While they are still not something I would advise a child under three to work with, if one or two fall on the floor and get into the hands of the younger sibling, they aren’t as dangerous as a plastic or glass bead. Cereal can also be glued to cardboard and painted for free-form play.

4. Indoor Terrain

If you have a little boy in your home, you know how appealing dirt can be. Kids seem to want to run their fingers through dirt, push their toys into it, and pour it from cups into bowls. Stale cereal can be used in much the same way as dirt or sand, especially indoors, where you may want to use something with less of an “ick” factor.

5. Baking

There are a handful of recipes I’m familiar with that get some of their deliciousness from the characteristics of dry cereal. Stale cereal has been used in everything from cookies to cakes with much success. Cereal that’s high in fiber can be crushed finely to create a “flour” and substituted for a quarter of the regular white flour in most recipes. You may also want to try this garbage cookie recipe I found at Frugal Village!

If You Don’t Like Recycling Food, You Can Always Try to Revive It

Lifehacker tells us that it’s possible to give new life to chewy cereal by putting it in the oven for 3-5 minutes at 300 degrees. I’m guessing putting it on a baking sheet in a single layer will do the trick, and while you’re at it, you may want to consider using the cereal as a component in homemade oven-baked granola!

Have you found a tasty way to bring old cereal back from the dead?

This article is from Linsey Knerl of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

When Good Food Goes Bad Part V: Cooking with Peeps

Andrea Karim — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:01:58 +0000

I suppose defining Peeps, a favorite of my childhood, as "good" food that goes bad, might be a bit of a stretch.

Those marshmallow chicks that come in an array of unnatural colors go stale REALLY quickly. You open the pack, and about five minutes later, they're as good as inedible.

Despite the fact that we are all diabetics, my mum still buys each of her offspring a pack of Peeps every year. I'll nibble one or two, realizing that they're not nearly as sweet as I remember them. But honestly, I can't eat the whole box, so I usually end up throwing them away. That, and I have issues with anthropomorphic foods, meaning that I only ever eat the chocolate bunny (poor bunny!) once someone else threatens to take it away from me.

Anyway, it's my mother's thoughtfulness that leaves me with two boxes of uneaten Peeps this Easter Sunday. Thank goodness a local chef has come up with a way to prevent waste and consume strange dishes using the poor, innocent, marshmallow chicks.

Seattle chef Jason Wilson had the brilliant idea of melting down the Peeps and pretending that they are actually edible. Below is one of the recipes, the only frugal one to be found. The other recipes involve truffle oil and foie gras, two ingedients that no self-respecting chef would cook without, especially now that arugula has fallen out of favor, but certainly not two items that most people have simply lying around the house. Hence, I'm only posting the frugal ones, but check out Wilson's recipe for Green Eggs and Ham at Weekend America's site. You can download and listen to the show's podcast here.

Peep Fondue

Ingredients:
2 rows of Peeps, one blue, one yellow
1 tbsp. Butter
1/3 cup water
1/2 pear, sliced
1/2 apple, sliced
chocolate cookies
cheese, sliced into logs

Procedure:
In a saucepot on low heat, slowly melt the Peeps with the butter and water, stirring consistently. When Peeps are melted and fondue is ready, serve in a fondue pot, keeping mixture warm because it will become solid if left to be cold.

Terri's Peep Hut also offers up some fun, if more conventional, takes on how to use up Peeps for all seasons. My personal favorite:

Peepuccino

Dissolve one peep in a very hot cup of black coffee – species and color
of peep is of your choosing. Stir until frothy.

Geekbabe also has some excellent Peeps links.

This article is from Andrea Karim of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

When Good Food Goes Bad Part IV: Black Beans

Andrea Karim — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:28:44 +0000

Feijoada (pronounced "fayj-wada") is Brazil's national dish. Although it's simple enough to be eaten on a daily basis, feijoada is often prepared in huge batches for big parties. It's basically a big, salty, tasty pot of black beans cooked with smoked meats and herbs, served over rice with a side of collard greens and sliced oranges.

And it is one of the most delicious meals that I can think of.

You can try feijoada if you are lucky enough to have a Brazilian restaurant in your area. Unfortunately, many Brazilian restaurants treat feijoada like it's a very fine dish and charge exorbitant prices for it. My local Brazilian haunt, for instance, charges $40 for a two-person serving — for a dish that costs next to nothing to make!

There's a fairly big controversy as to how feijoada originated. A lot of people think it's a very "common" food, owing to the fact that the least choice pieces of meat are used (feet, ears, tails, hamhocks) to flavor the food. Others claim that the food was a variation of a Portuguese delicacy that was, in fact, enjoyed by the upper class Brazilian population, but modified by their servants. There are a lot of class arguments involved, but my main interest in the dish is that it's yummy and cheap.

I found a great recipe in my favorite foodie magazine, Saveur, and tried it out at home (the recipe is not found on the website, unfortunately). To my delight, it was better than the stuff that my local place makes. Not only that, but I was able to use up many bags of black beans just as they were getting a TAD too stale. Now, feijoada takes a long time to cook, but the results last for DAYS.

There are many, many different variations of feijoada recipes. I'm posting some of them here, but my basic recipe is this:

Ingredients:

2 onions, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 bag of dry black beans
Misc. salted meats to your liking
2-3 bay leaves
Rice

Method:

Sautee the onions and garlic in a large pot with some vegetable oil until soft. Rinse the bag of black beans and toss them in the pot with as much water as is recommended (I start with six cups and add more if needed). Add a bunch of salted meats (traditional meats include salted hamhocks, linguica or kielbasa sausage, and maybe a pig foot). Throw in a couple of bay leaves. Cook for about four hours. Add water and adjust heat as needed. Once it's a big, starchy mess, put it in a pretty bowl and serve over rice.

There are even vegetarian versions of feijoada, but honestly, I think you can simply replace the meat with some Boca products, toss in a little liquid smoke, and you're golden.

Feijoada is served with collard greens that are sliced confetti-thin and sliced oranges. I also like to top mine with a mouth-burning hot sauce. In Brazil, feijoada is also accompanied by a capirinha or two, but it's good sober, as well.

This article is from Andrea Karim of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: