Keith Floyd's Liver

Just finished stacking the dishwasher (another tetris effort - some of you know what that means I'm sure) after attempting two very disparate Keith Floyd recipes to use up leftovers from earlier in the week. First up was devils on horse back which can be found on BBC Food. I had half a tub of chicken livers in the fridge together with a few slices of dried cured bacon so the idea of combining the two with a bit of paprika (well, you were warned) and some cayenne pepper was worth a go for a starter. The result was a very tasty, rich and carnivorous snack with a nice dry kick complemented by the comforting buttered toast - highly recommended.

Then I turned to my recent purchase from Oxfam - a copy of Keith's Far Flung Floyd BBC book from 1993 that I picked up for £3.99. In it I found a Thai soup consisting of not much more than celery, soy sauce, cooked rice, prawns, fish sauce and water together with a bit of garlic and coriander to garnish. Having a tub of day old cooked basmatic rice in the fridge and half a bag of frozen king prawns kicking around and the scrag end of most of the other elements I gave it a go. However, the lack of heat (and stock) concerned me, so I lobbed in a spoonful of Indonesian chilli sambal (chopped red chillis in salty sauce from the excellent wing yip Chinese superstore in Manchester), a heaped teaspoon of powdered veggie stock and some chopped coriander. The result was a hot and sour rice slop, which was quite heavy going, but very filling (mind you, soup + rice is always going to be 'heavy' on the stomach). So, bits and pieces of food saved from the dustbin and made into a perfectly exceptable, interesting supper. And now dishwasher's on and there's a radio two documentary about Otis Redding floating out of my digital radio presented by that fine Wiganer Stuart Maconie - life could be worse.

And yes, Oxfam prices are going up.