How am I doing with my not binning food challenge? I don’t think I am doing too badly.  I have to admit to having to put a chunk of pumpkin in the compost as I didn’t get around to making soup quickly enough.  Oooops.  And I didn’t quite finish up a small carton of cream that I had started when I made my favourite pink dauphinoise –  must share that recipe, so delicious.  Like dauphinoise but with a layer of cooked beetroot in the middle.  Yum!!  And there are odds and ends of baguette that I have not managed to use before they turned into items that could be used as lethal weapons.  It is quite incredible how hard baguettes go in 2 days!  They could be used to defend yourself from intruders!!

I was added a challenge this week after running a cub sleepover. I ended up with a excess of sliced bread.  In France, it is rare to have standard sliced bread like we have all the time in the UK.  Generally, the sliced bread in bags at the supermarket is not so nice, very dry and often very sweet.  But for a British Scouts Overseas sleepover we need a proper British breakfast with English sausages, bacon, baked beans, eggs and sliced bread.  So a kind Dad went to M&S (the place to go, if you live near Paris, for all those really British foods) and buys these things, including really nice sliced bread!   Saturday I come back with the leftover bread from the sleepover not knowing my husband has also visited M&S the day of the sleepover and came home with a loaf of bread!  Serious excess of bread. How will we ever use it before it goes mouldy?

With some serious freezer restacking, one loaf goes in the freezer, some is used for toast for a English breakfast on Sunday, some is used for a breadcrumb topping for Sunday dinner bean gratin and the rest is used for Glamorgan sausages!  I do like Glamorgan sausages and feel this is an appropriate recipe to share in light of the reduce food waste challenge.

Breadcrumbs (about third of a loaf per egg)

Finely chopped leek (or spring onion)

A large chunk of grated cheddar cheese (or Caerphilly or any hard cheese that can be grated)

Herbs (I used frozen thyme but you can use whatever herbs you like)

Black pepper

Egg lightly beaten

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Then add the egg, if it is too wet then add more breadcrumbs.  You want to squeeze everything together so that you can make sausage shapes that hold together.  It might be worth flouring your hands to help shape the sausages – it is a sticky task and it is no bad thing to dust them lightly with flour if you are planning to store them in the fridge or freeze them, they are easier to handle.

Some people like to dip their their sausages in egg and roll them in more breadcrumbs to get a really crispy coating.

Heat up some oil in a small frying pan and cook them until they are golden on the outside and hot all the way through.

This is a recipe you can play with, use different bread, use different cheese, spice them up with chilli, grate some apple in (you need more breadcrumbs to compensate for the extra moisture), change the herbs, mash some beans to add to the mix and turn them into burger shapes or falafel shapes.  Eat them as part of a cooked breakfast, have them on a sandwich, have them with mash and gravy…….see how versatile a bit of extra bread can be.