Use ‘dead bread’ to make this versatile sheet pan dish

I was intrigued when Atlanta Journal-Constitution reader Ellen Nemhauser emailed to explain how she likes to cook a dish with what she calls “dead bread.”

At first, I thought it might be a reference to the Grateful Dead, but it turns out that the 81-year-old former librarian is not a Dead Head. She’s a big fan of the bread from Atlanta’s Root Bakery. And, she likes it so much she uses every bit.

“I save the ends of their bread in cubes approximately 1½ inches,” Nemhauser wrote. “You can save other parts, too. You just want approximate uniformity.”

She puts them in a plastic container labeled “Dead Bread,” and saves them until she has a quart container full.

When she has enough, she makes savory sheet pan dinners, using chicken quarters or other juicy proteins tossed in olive oil with the bread cubes, which, she said, “become crispy and delicious.”

Nemhauser, who has lived in Atlanta for 35 years, resides in a Midtown high-rise near Piedmont Park, and is a docent at the High Museum. While Root Bakery at Ponce City Market has been closed to the public, she finds the company’s bread at the nearby 14th Street Whole Foods or the Ponce de Leon Whole Foods.

“This recipe is totally forgivable,” Nemhauser said by phone recently. “If you were totally illiterate, and didn’t know the language of the country you were living in, you could still make it. This kind of recipe is infinitely variable.”

However, one thing you must have, Nemhauser insisted, is “sturdy bread.”

“I cannot emphasize that too much,” she said. “It’s like making croutons. This would just be a sodden mush with standard store bread.”

Nemhauser recalled first seeing a similar dish in The New York Times, but over the years she made it her own by using whatever she had on hand.

Ellen Nemhauser (right) is seen at a recent family gathering. CONTRIBUTED BY ELLEN NEMHAUSER

She prefers proteins that produce drippings, so she often uses sausage in place of skin-on chicken, along with “sturdy vegetables,” like carrots, potatoes or artichokes. And, she sometimes sprinkles olives or capers on top. “Anything but maraschino cherries,” she joked.

I made a version with chicken breasts, which Nemhauser doesn’t recommend, but she was happier when I told her I used an extra slug of olive oil, along with some artichokes and lemons, which she recommended in a recipe she shared.

Asked how she and her husband are responding to the pandemic, Nemhauser noted that they both are wearing masks when they go out, and they still like to do their own grocery shopping.

Sometimes, Ellen Nemhauser makes savory sheet pan dinners using sausage in place of chicken. CONTRIBUTED BY ELLEN NEMHAUSER

“I like to look at the vegetables and see which ones I want,” Nemhauser said. “Up until the virus, we went to DeKalb Farmers Market religiously. It was like a pilgrimage every Saturday. Now, we only go to Whole Foods, a few blocks away.

“But the thing that’s caught on in our high-rise is to ask your neighbors the night before you do your grocery shopping whether there are a few things you can pick up for them. I think anyone living anywhere can do that as a favor right now.”