Keeping Homemade Bread Fresh

We've had a bread bin like the one above for over 10 years. It was airtight and large enough to keep a couple of loaves of homemade bread. However, this year we noticed that some of the enamel was starting to wear off, it was getting a bit rusty and some of the breadcrumbs in the bottom were going mouldy instead  staying dry.

In the hot weather we started keeping the bread in a plastic bag in the fridge.  This was better than seeing half a loaf go mouldy the day after it had been baked but did tend to dry out the bread and make it rather hard, so not really any good for sandwiches.

Now the hot weather has gone we went back to using the bread bin, but all the reasons we had started not to like it then became really apparent, especially the mouldy breadcrumbs at the bottom, yuk ! So I started to research the best way to keep homemade bread besides slicing it when cold and keeping the sliced loaf in the freezer. The freezer is too full of produce at present to make that a realistic option ! Well, you can use a wooden roll top bin, an enamel one, a ceramic one, a roll top metal bin, a paper bag, a plastic bag and a cotton bag and apparently all will work well. We've had roll top bread bins in the past, both wooden and metal and eventually they all suffer from the same problems as our current enamel one. I was quite tempted by the idea of a ceramic crock but they are expensive and MrShoestring pointed out that they are very heavy and easy to break !

Finally, I decided on a plastic box with an air-tight lid that can easily go in the dishwasher. I counted out my Love2Shop vouchers from the postal survey and got ready to go to Robert Dyas to buy one in the right size. However, before I left, my eye was caught by my portable sand tray for counselling, it has an air-tight lid, is made of plastic and was exactly the right size. I'm not going counselling in schools again this year and haven't been using the box so decide to re-purpose it ! A quick wash in the dishwasher and it was transformed into the new bread bin at zero cost ! This was even better than using the Love2Shop vouchers to buy a new one for free, as now I am using something that was lying around being clutter. If I ever need a sand tray again I have the ideal seed potting tray sitting in MrShoestring's workshop !

Repurposing beats purchasing every time !