Part of fine cooking on a budget means minimizing waste and utilizing leftovers, and one of my favorite ways to do that is by making my own breadcrumbs. For the first time, though, I tried something different.

A recent dinner party left us with a couple baguettes, which we used to make homemade garlic bread, full of butter and real garlic. Then we did something dumb; we left the garlic bread out overnight. It was fine, but too hard to eat. Instead of tossing it, I decided to try something new: garlic breadcrumbs!

They’ve been in my fridge for awhile waiting for a purpose, but I found it when I made some delicious breaded tilapia. I mixed the garlic breadcrumbs with The Spice House’s Chesapeake Bay seasoning (The Spice House’s version of classic Old Bay).

I took the tilapia fillets and pressed them into the garlic breadcrumbs and panfried the fish in a little bit of olive oil. The flavor was light and crispy, and absolutely wonderful. I served it with butter-and-garlic orzo and broccolini (sometimes called baby broccoli).

Another great discovery made entirely by accident! Be creative in the kitchen and good things will happen!

These enormous shrimp were so cheap it was amazing they were still fresh and delicious, but their seafood’s never done us wrong. Shrimp scampi is actually incredibly easy to make. I like cooking it with the shells because there’s so much flavor in the shells.

To make shrimp scampi, all you need is butter and a little fresh garlic (though a little Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic can make a great substitute!). Here are some QUICK TIPS for making awesome shrimp scampi:

• Don’t forget to devein your shrimp! And yes, you CAN devein your shrimp with the shell on!
• Be generous with the butter! For ten of these jumbo badboys I used about 3/4 stick of butter
• …and the garlic!! Three huge cloves of garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice rounded out the flavor
• Keep the shells on! Makes them harder to eat, but
  • the shells hold in flavor and add flavor to the butter sauce
  • you can save the shells to make a delicious stock!

I served this over some leftover Chinese takeout rice with a little bit of roasted corn. I tossed the browned butter and garlic with the rice for an outstanding flavor!

Also, a handful of shrimp shells goes a LONG way! I saved these garlic-soaked babies and tossed them in a quart of water to boil for about an hour and a half with a carrot and half an onion to make an amazing seafood stock that I froze to use later (perhaps in a delicious Jambalaya?).

You need a garlic press. You do. Polaner Garlic (or any jarred minced garlic) is great in a pinch, so be sure to keep a jar on hand, but there’s nothing quite like the real thing. And please please please, stop trying to flavor everything with garlic powder and garlic salt. It has its place, for sure, but it’s just not the same. Most premade sauces have more than enough salt and sodium, so stick with the fresh stuff to maximize flavor.

I know, I know, crushing your own garlic is too big a pain in the ass. What if you didn’t have to peel it first? That’s where freshly peeled garlic in the produce department comes in. It’s easy to get at Asian and Italian markets, and they probably have some at a store near you.

Without peeled garlic, I’m not sure I’d make the effort all the time, but the cloves are generally all large, making it quicker to crush (as opposed to a bunch of teensy tiny cloves).

Seriously, check your produce department and if they don’t have it, demand it.