Reducing waste in the kitchen - using up the ends of the bread

Bringing two families together means there are rather a lot of us and we get through a lot of bread in a week - sadly very rarely made by me at the moment.  The ends of the loaf always get left  - occasionally they are cut thick enough that we are able to slice it thinner, but usually not. So what to do with the leftovers, apart from fill up local ducks and our chickens, so that we reduce the waste?

I love gnocchi and vaguely remembered a recipe for gnocchi made from breadcrumbs so got searching for ideas. I've done my usual adaptation to suit what ingredients I have available and what I think feels right - and to take advantage of all the very abundant stinging nettles at this time of year!

Nettle and breadcrumb gnocchi
115g nettle tops
340g bread - ends of old loaves are best and use up what would might be wasted.
1 egg
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Seasoning

Drop the nettle tops into boiling water and leave for about a minute then drain but don't squeeze out all the water.

Pop the bread into a food processor and start to turn it to breadcrumbs - it really does need to be very fine breadcrumbs to allow the mix to hold together - the first time I made breadcrumb gnocchi I didn't have fine enough breadcrumbs and the gnocchi fell apart.

Once the breadcrumbs are fine enough, drop the stinging nettles in to the food processor - this results in a bright green mass of breadcrumbs

Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper and then bind the whole lot together with egg to form a nice dough.

Pinch off bits of the dough and roll into marble sized balls, and place on a floured board.

Once you have made all the dough into gnocchi  you can drop them into rapidly boiling salted water then drain them once they have all risen to the top of the water

At this stage you can drop them into a frying pan with some butter in it and fry briefly, or mix them into a cheese sauce.

Very quick cheese sauce
Carton of double cream
Whatever cheese you like
Seasoning
Bay leaf

Put the cream and bay leaf into a pan and bring to a slow boil with stirring. Remove the bay leaf and add in the grated cheese (I used a mix of emmental and mature cheddar - about 100g in total), and stir and heat very gently until you have a smooth and creamy sauce, season and the pour all over the gnocchi.

Serve with a garden salad and vegetables.  Its not possible to tell this is made of stinging nettles - but the bright green colour they impart makes this perfect for kids: 'alien bogies in sauce' - even our 5 year old ate all of his knowing it was made with stingies!