Crispy Cajun Toasts

This weekend we prepared pasta for a small crowd, so we have a lot of leftover bread. Since I hate to throw anything out, I decided to use this three-day-old bread. Tonight I'll be making a chocolate bread pudding, but this afternoon I fixed a batch of Crispy Cajun Toasts, a recipe from Terri Pischoff Wuerthner’s In a Cajun Kitchen. Preparing these little snacks help me avoid the guilt of wasting food, and they're tasty. I sometimes use these in place of bagel chips in my Chex Party Mix.

I know this recipe doesn't seem like much, but these are quite tasty.

Note: If you wanted to cut the bread into cubes, you would prepare a batch of Cajun Croutons.

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 loaf soft French bread, at least one day old

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
2. Combine all the spices, sugar, and oil in a bowl and blend thoroughly.
3. Using a serrated knife, slice the bread in 1/4-inch slices. Place on baking sheets.
4. Brush bread with oil-seasoning mixture on top of bread.
5. Place in oven and bake for 25 minutes or until the bread is crisp.
6. Store in an airtight container.

Enjoy,
muddywaters