Floyd's Greek Mushrooms

My husband continues to upstage me on the frugality stakes, bearing bargains back to the house on an almost daily basis.This week's triumph was 750g of mushrooms, reduced to 79p in the Co-op. Needless to say it's yours truly who has to make good use of them and ensure they don't go to waste.

For those of you who can't envisage 750g of mushrooms, it's a lot. About 1 1/2 lbs and mushrooms are really light. Of course there are a number of things I could have done with them - mushroom soup, mushroom quiche, Mushroom duxelles (a thick, delicious paste of cooked down mushroom and onion) but flicking through a new reprint of Keith Floyd's first cookbook Floyd's Food I'd just been sent by my publisher Absolute Press I found a recipe for Greek Mushrooms - a Floydish spin on champignons à la grecque. And very good it was too. (My comments in italics)

Serves 4-6

1 lb (450g) small button mushrooms
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar (not having sherry vinegar I used 1 tbsp cider vinegar and 1 tbsp amontillado sherry)
1 tbsp coriander seeds, coarsely crushed (don't use ground coriander)
1 bay leaf
1/2 lemon cut in very, very thin slices (sounds odd but delicious. Makes the recipe)
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1/2 tin of tomatoes and their juice (assumed that was half a 400g tin)
Salt and pepper

Wash and dry the mushrooms. Salt and pepper them. In a pan heat the olive oil and vinegar with the coriander seeds. When hot drop in everything else including the mushrooms and cook wildly (love this!) for 5 or 6 minutes. Lift out the mushrooms and allow the sauce to reduce by half (I didn't find I needed to do this - will depend on hte moisture content of your mushrooms). Pour back over the mushrooms. Chill for ages and eat them later (with some crusty bread and maybe another couple of mezze.)

And the rest of the mushrooms? I added them to the tail end of a coq au vin, adding a good Floyd-like slosh of extra red wine and served the resulting sauce with pappardelle (thick pasta ribbons). Which was also a success. Maybe I should let my husband do the shopping after all . . .

Were you - are you - an admirer of the late, lamented Keith Floyd? And have you ever tried one of his recipes?

Thrifty 50 - 50 budget recipes from UKTV Food

Topically the UKTV website has put up a list of 50 budget recipes on its website today, a useful resource for anyone trying to trim their household budget.

There are a couple I wouldn't myself regard as particularly thrifty. Spaghetti vongole made with fresh clams isn't cheap unless you live by the sea - or in Venice - and the compilers of the list obviously haven't noticed how much lamb shanks have gone up in price recently but I like the idea of the Turkish chickpea stew Inzimino, Afghani aubergine casserole and James Martin's clever Instant Banana Icecream.

Scotch eggs and other yummy things

Just thought I'd draw your attention to Mark Hix' column in the Independent today where he offers some budget recipes including ham hocks in parsley sauce, meatballs and (my favourite) homemade Scotch eggs.

Unusually for a celebrity chef, Mark, who was brought up in Dorset, has his feet firmly on the ground. (Apart from admitting he did most of his shopping for the feature at Waitrose!)