Last Saturday, I brought home a biscuit that had been part of my breakfast at a local Bob Evans restaurant. (The kitchen’s only going to throw it away — why let it go to waste?)

Today I decided to eat it along with the bowl of soup I was having for lunch. I took it out of the refrigerator and tried to break it in half, and found that I’d need a hammer and chisel to get inside it. I considered just dunking it into the soup, like coffee and donuts, but the soup was quite thick, and the biscuit probably wouldn’t absorb enough liquid to make it soft.

A little moisture softens a stale biscuit. (Photo credit: Lou Sander)

I tried wrapping it in a napkin and microwaving it for a few seconds, on the theory that the shortening in the biscuit would soften, but it was still rock-hard. So I moistened it with a little water, just with my fingertips, lightly, on the top and bottom, rewrapped it, and nuked it again for ten seconds.

Success! It hadn’t returned to its original wonderful fall-apart flaky state, but it was as tender as any biscuit I’d pull out of my own oven (I make hockey pucks), and it broke nicely into smaller pieces that went into the soup.

I know this isn’t a Big Thing — one biscuit, more or less, isn’t going to solve the world’s food waste problem. But I ended up with a delicious accompaniment to my lunch, the biscuit didn’t end up in the disposal, and I don’t have to feel guilty about wasting food.

Want to stay in touch with the latest recycling news in the Cleveland area? Just click on the Follow button at the bottom of my blog Home page, or subscribe to my Examiner.com page.