♪ Leith, voice-over: I'm Prue Leith-- cook, restaurateur, cookery school founder, and writer of 15 cookbooks.

Looks good, doesn't it?

Leith, voice-over: I'm in my 80s, so I haven't got time to waste.

This series is all about the things that really matter to me-- family, fun, food, and friends, and some of those friends will be joining me.

We'll be sharing simple, home-cooked recipes... Alison Hammond: But I don't normally tell people about that bit, only people I like.

Ha ha ha!

Leith, voice-over: and celebrating the best produce.

For 47 years, I have been lucky enough to live in the astonishingly beautiful Cotswolds, and my long-suffering husband John is coming along for the ride.

Can you make that?

Under instruction.

Leith, voice-over: In today's episode, he'll be helping me reluctantly with a cheese dish.

Would you prefer the hot knife?

I prefer to go and read my book.

Ha ha ha!

Leith, voice-over: Broadcaster and entrepreneur Laura Jackson will be treating me to her favorite family meal...

I am all about ease of life, and this is one of those dishes.

Leith, voice-over: and I've got a handy hack for dealing with rock-hard sugar.

Welcome to my Cotswold kitchen.

♪ Family and food mean a lot to me, so when my husband John says he's not happy about something in the food department, I guess I have to listen.

John always complains that I don't make enough puddings and sweet dishes, so I'm going to start today with an old favorite of mine.

It's bananas and ice cream with brandy syrup on panettone.

What could be more indulgent than that?

♪ Many people avoid making ice cream because it can be time-consuming and a bit complicated, but this recipe is made with condensed milk, and it's a no-churn ice cream.

It's easy to make, and I promise you, it will taste way better than a lot of that shop-bought stuff, so it's made with only 3 ingredients, basically-- 600 mils of whipping cream, a standard can of condensed milk, and a teaspoon of vanilla paste.

You could use, um, vanilla extract.

It's fine.

It's just, I like the vanilla paste because it has the seeds in it and you get little specks in the ice cream, and that's it.

That's the only ingredients.

You can put a tiny, tiny pinch of salt into it because salt has that property of just lifting the flavor a little bit, but you don't need to.

Right, and then you just whip it all up, and you stick it in the freezer, and that's it.

Mm.

Bit overenthusiastic.

This takes about 4 minutes, which gives me time to tell you about the origin of this dish.

I first met this recipe when I was a university student and I had one of my first boyfriends, and I was really in love with his mother because she seemed to me the kind of mother that I would have liked as a child because my mama was an actress, and she was really very elegant and very smart, and she was always out at the theater, and she didn't ever cook anything, and she wore fancy hats and embarrassed me when she came to school because she looked so grand.

I wanted a mum who loved cooking and made cakes for the school fete, and she was never like that, but my boyfriend's mum made everything at home, and she made this ice cream, and I've loved it ever since, didn't love the boyfriend for long but did love his mum's ice cream.

♪ Do you see, it's getting a bit thicker now, but do you want to whip it until what's-- it's called soft peaks.

Soft peaks is usually used about cream or meringue, and what it means is, when you lift the whisk, it will stand up in peaks.

♪ I wonder how many gallons of double cream I've whipped in my life.

♪ OK, so now we've got it to do-- Do you see, when I pull it up, it makes little peaks.

That is soft peak, so that's it, and that's your ice cream mix done, and you want to put it into anything that will go in the freezer, so this is a loaf tin.

That will do.

You could also put it into a plastic box if you prefer.

Don't have to smooth it too much, but you can, so that's that, and I'm going to put it into the freezer now overnight and take out the one I made earlier.

♪ Right.

Now, that will be too hard now.

I can just stick a spoon into it now, but in 10 minutes, it'll be perfect for scooping.

♪ It's gorgeous, yeah, lovely... ♪ so I'm going to start with just dry-frying the hazelnuts.

If you get them just beginning to turn color, they taste much nuttier.

It's odd because they're nuts, aren't they?

They should taste maximum nuts, but when you fry them or just brown them in a dry pan like this, they do end up tasting a little bit more nutty, and they look better.

♪ Oh, do you see, they're browning now.

♪ I think that's enough.

Right, and then you want to put them onto a cold tray because if you just move the pan off, the pan is so hot, it'll continue to burn them, so now I'm going to fry the panettone, and that's going to be fried in butter.

♪ [Sizzling] I'm going to fry both these pieces of panettone.

Unfortunately, I can't fit them both in the pan at once, I don't think, or maybe I can.

Yes, I can.

♪ My mum was a great failure for me because she never learned to cook, but she liked food, but she wasn't interested in it.

She never talked about it or anything, and I don't remember there being a cookbook in the house.

So then we need the panettone on a plate... ♪ and now we're going to fry the bananas.

I think they need to be just ripe, but not overripe.

When you cut them in half, hold them like a boat so that you can get them evenly cut in half, oops, like that.

♪ Another lump of butter in there.

♪ Ooh, that one's cracked.

Never mind.

If the banana's cracked, don't worry.

They're all going to taste the same.

Obviously, it depends how fast you fry them, but I think they can take up to 5 minutes to brown.

You really just want one side good and brown.

The second side is very difficult to brown because it's curved.

When they begin to brown, they'll smell really beautiful.

I--yeah.

I can smell them now.

♪ I mean, there is actually nothing like fried bananas.

Right.

Well, I have a couple of broken bananas here, so I'm going to turn over one side and see how I'm doing.

Do you see, it's beginning to brown, but it's not quite brown enough.

I've got them on medium heat rather than really hot because I don't want the butter to burn, and then we'll go and stick them on the panettone.

I'm going to slide one of these bananas on here and one of the half bananas.

Oops.

♪ Now I'm going to mix a dollop of brandy and some golden syrup together, but they won't mix very well unless I warm this syrup a little bit, so I'm just going to warm it for a few seconds in the microwave.

♪ That's warm now, so I'm just going to add the brandy to it, give it a stir up, and now we need a scoop of ice cream like that... ♪ on there.

I've got some boiling water in here because it makes it much easier to scoop the ice cream.

♪ Move up, you.

♪ Then we need the nuts on there-- ♪ think I've lost one somewhere-- and then we need brandy syrup all over it.

I'll tell you what.

That is so delicious.

There we have fried bananas, no-churn ice cream, hazelnuts, and brandy syrup on panettone, and I think it's going to be delicious.

In fact, I know it's going to be delicious.

♪ Hmm.

Thank you, my boyfriend's mum, because this ice cream is really, really good.

♪ It's ridiculously good.

[Laughs] I am going to struggle not to eat the whole lot.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Welcome back to my Cotswold Kitchen, where I love to cook my favorite recipes for my favorite people.

Now, I love shortcuts and anything that can save time and money in the kitchen.

John is out in the garden checking on the bees, and before Laura Jackson, my guest, arrives, I just want to show you a neat trick to stop brown sugar going rock hard.

♪ So here's some sugar that's just absolutely-- I mean, really, it's solid.

I mean, I'll have to do my trick before I'll be able to scoop it out of the jar... ♪ and the trick is to put a lemon in it... ♪ and after a few days, the sugar will be really soft, and you'll be able to spoon it.

There is a slight downside to the lemon trick, is after a month or two, the lemon sometimes goes moldy, so you need to put it in for a few weeks and then take it out again, but there's another way to do it, and that is, instead of putting a lemon in it, put a couple of marshmallows in it.

Marshmallows have exactly the same effect, and, being sugar on sugar, they don't go moldy.

This one, which we had also at rock-hard texture, is now as soft as anything, just like it came out of the packet originally, and that's been in there for a week.

What I really like about that-- and it absolutely suits my nature--is, it means you don't have to waste the sugar and you can use the jar.

I mean, when you've got sugar stuck like concrete in there, you can't use the jar, either, so I'm all for something that saves you money and doesn't throw things away.

♪ Leith, voice-over: I love nothing better than a busy house with good friends in it.

My guest this morning has presented on shows like "Britain's Best Beach Huts" and "The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge."

She's also run a supper club, a homeware company Glassette, and is a lifestyle columnist.

If that's not enough, she's also a mum with 3 tiny children.

Laura Jackson, welcome to my kitchen.

Thanks for having me.

What an introduction.

Well, I am so pleased to have you, Laura Jackson, in my kitchen, and I'm very glad that you're a cook because I'm going to just sit here and you're going to cook.

What are you going to cook?

Well, I am cooking a very easy dish for you today.

It's chick peas, roasted fennel, and roasted tomatoes.

♪ It's a staple in our house.

It basically is a one-pot dish with an additional kind of green dressing, and, I have to say, I cook it for the kids.

my husband, and when I've got people coming over for dinner, I'll do it with a roast chicken, so I'll zhuzh it up, but I am all about ease of life, and this is one of those dishes.

OK. Well, let's go.

I like to kind of do a variety of the tomatoes-- it feels a bit elevated-- Yeah.

rather than just your red cherry tomatoes, so let's chop those and put them in.

♪ OK.

So you got in there-- you've got the tomatoes...

Yes.

and the chick peas.

Yes, and I'm just literally lobbing it all in.

So in goes the garlic whole, not chopped up or anything.

No.

I'm putting it in whole because I really like it when it's roasted.

It just becomes very sweet and, I mean-- And soft, yeah.

Yeah.

I quite like a big mouthful of garlic.

I'm putting 7 in.

Some people might say that's a lot, but I feel like I could go heavier.

Well...

I'm holding back.

I absolutely agree, so I want to know what is a lifestyle advisor/ columnist/ influencer?

Well, I write about my home and my life and cooking, so that kind of, I feel, falls under the genre of lifestyle.

I love homeware, and I love interiors.

I love traveling and food, so, yeah, it's kind of a combination of all of those things.

Do you do those things people do, tablescaping?

Do you do that?

Yes.

I feel that whenever I cook something, even if it's really simple, I love to lay the table.

Oh, so do I. Yeah.

I get really cross if people start picking up things before we're sitting down.

I just think that ceremonious aspect of eating is really special-- laying the table, having-- Even if you've got a £5 bottle of wine and you put it in a jug, it just feels so elevated and lovely, and, for me, self-care isn't shaving my legs-- don't tell anyone-- um, you know, going to get my nails done.

It's laying the table, and that's how I show the ones that I-- you know, my family love and myself love, really, is taking that time.

Taking the trouble over it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

I absolutely agree with you.

So what else has gone in here?

So I've got cumin seeds in there, and I've got smoked chili flakes.

Oh, right.

That's-- Smell that.

That smells smoked, all right...

It's very smoky.

so just a very few of them.

Mm-hmm, and then I'm just going to put some fennel on the top, and then we can pop it in the oven.

And there's no oil in it or anything?

I'm going to drizzle with some oil and sprinkle with some salt before it goes in, but this is pretty much it.

It's very simple.

It looks so pretty like that.

I love fennel.

I love fennel, especially when it gets really soft and silky.

Mm.

Can be very tough, fennel, so it needs to be cooked.

OK. Can I use your oven?

Yeah.

Of course.

I think it's probably on.

Yeah.

It is.

Here we are.

Right, so I'm-- There you go.

So how long does that stay in there?

So that's 35 minutes.

And it's at 220, so it's quite hot.

Yes.

It is quite hot.

Good.

About halfway through, I'll usually kind of just stir it.

Give it a stir.

Yeah.

So what's next?

Next is making a kind of a herb salsa-y dressing.

Sort of green dressing.

Yes, a green sauce kind of thing.

Green sauce.

I don't measure anything out... No.

Nor do I.

Go for it.

so it's just kind of handfuls of whatever herbs you've got, but I've got coriander, parsley, and basil here, and I use the stalks, as well, just so I don't waste anything.

Yeah, so you're making green what, a salsa verde?

Yeah.

It's kind of like a salsa verde, but I'm adding olives.

You could add capers-- Yeah.

actually, that would be really nice-- and then a bit of lemons, and it's just going to go over the top.

I mean I've put fennel in it, but you could add cauliflower or broccoli and I like dishes that I can kind of-- the base is always the same, but you can interchange with whatever you found lying around in your fridge, for instance.

I love a fridge raid.

I'm really bad at maths and science, but I'm really good at looking in my fridge and going, "Oh, I've only got these 3 things.

What can I make?"

Have a little try.

Oh, so that's it.

Hope it's OK. Oh, don't be ridiculous.

Prue's trying my sauce.

That's all right.

I'm not Paul Hollywood.

Um... Oh, look.

Mm.

It actually tastes green, doesn't it?

Mm, it really does.

It's lovely.

I like the black olives in it.

Mm.

Mm.

Lovely.

I'm going to put this to one side while that's cooking, and we can make the mayonnaise.

Oh, right.

OK. Before we start this, can I check?

Oh, yeah.

Why not?

Just in case because I think-- Yeah.

I reckon we should get this out.

Yeah.

Looks good.

Ooh.

I'll pop it on here.

Yeah.

That's a good idea.

OK. Mayonnaise.

OK.

I hope it goes right.

I'm at Prue's house cooking mayonnaise, I keep reminding myself, and I can't get the lid off.

Here we go, so I usually freestyle this, as in, I'll just use one egg yolk and then add in as I go.

Right, so egg.

♪ This is how I do it, but then I got really eggy hands... That's all right.

I will give you a cloth to wipe them.

and I use rapeseed because I like the color of it.

I like rapeseed, and I like the taste of that, too.

Yeah.

This is from the Cotswolds.

Yeah.

It is.

I'm going to add some Dijon mustard.

Mm-hmm.

[Whirring] ♪ [Whirring stops] I think we're nearly there.

[Whirring] ♪ [Whirring stops] Right.

I'm going to mince some garlic in there.

I know there's some garlic in here, but I feel like roasted garlic is so different to-- Yes.

The roasted garlic is a veg.

Raw garlic is a condiment.

I'm just going to put in half.

There we go.

All right.

Let's give that a mix.

That's right.

[Whirring] And you-- [Whirring stops] White wine vinegar.

White wine vinegar.

Could be red wine.

Could be anything, couldn't it?

Yes.

Whatever you like.

[Whirring] ♪ Yep.

Great.

Let me have a taste, or you can have a taste and tell me what you think it needs.

Heh.

Yep.

There you go.

Salt.

I'd put pepper and salt... Mm.

OK. but I wouldn't put any more vinegar.

Oh, OK. Is it too vinegary?

No.

You put the vinegar in there.

I put the vinegar, but I think it's fine.

And a bit of lemon.

Yeah.

OK. [Whirring] [Whirring stops] ♪ I'm going to put the green salsa sauce over the chick peas and tomato.

♪ That smells wonderful, too.

Oh, good.

I'm glad, so this is my roasted tomato, roasted fennel, and chick pea dish with a green salsa served with a mayonnaise, and I'm going to treat you to a table setting for one.

Ha ha ha!

Here we go.

This is-- I mean, this could be used as a tea towel, or it could be used as a placemat.

There we go, one for me, too, and then we've got a napkin-- there we go-- and then a candle... Oh, a candle.

on a ribbon.

I like adding a bow to the candle.

I honestly add bows to everything.

My sister came for dinner, and I wrapped a tomato in a bow, and she was like, "Why are you doing this?"

I was like, "Because it looks pretty."

Ha ha ha!

There we go, very romantic.

♪ I actually feel rather special now.

Exactly.

Even if I were serving you a takeaway pizza, you'd feel good.

Yeah.

Well, that looks like a feast, doesn't it?

It really does, and some mayonnaise.

♪ Voila ♪ Ha ha ha!

I think you're mad as a hatter, but it's-- I am.

I am.

but it's lovely.

I do like fennel.

Would you like some mayonnaise?

Oh, yeah, as well.

I figures, we made it-- Thank you.

There you go.

♪ Mm.

Is it good?

Wonderful.

OK. Are you lying?

No.

I'm not lying.

It's delicious.

Funnily enough, I think the green sauce needs the luxury of the mayonnaise, as well.

Mm.

It's nice to have them both.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, it's so good, and you know what?

You could serve it for supper.

If you wanted carbs-- or more carbs-- you could serve it on a great, big piece of toast.

Mm.

I'm a great believer in anything on toast, you know.

Me, too.

Leith, voice-over: Welcome back to my Cotswold Kitchen.

My husband John and I are keen to attract as much wildlife into our garden as we can, and right now, he's out checking on our bee colony.

Our bee expert Tony is on hand to make sure that we've put our hive in the best possible place.

Can you just tell me how you decide where to put your hives.

If you scan the landscape here, how would I know where to put them?

You want shelter from the prevailing wind, and that's from the southwest usually, so a nice, big hedge like we have here at the back of the hive is helpful, and then you want the hive actually facing normally east to southeast, so that the sun is shining on the hive in the morning.

Does this warm them up, get them going?

Warms them up, and the sun shines into the hive entrance, and they fly earlier... Ah.

when you do that.

♪ Yarrow: So this farm is great because it's private, and you're away from the sort of house and its curtilage where all the people are.

Playfair: Tony, this is the borage we planted.

We've planted 600 yards, all for the bees, and he bees are loving it.

Look at them.

They're all in there, And it's fantastic because it's a really lovely honey, and the plant keeps flowering for, 12 months, isn't it?

♪ Yarrow: OK, John, so what can you see?

Playfair: I've seen one or two with, look, yellow spots on each side of them.

What are they?

Right.

Well, those are the pollen loads, so the bees have got 3 pairs of legs on their thorax and the back pair of legs, which is the longest one, has got these sort of hairy baskets on one of the middle joints which are called the pollen baskets, and that's how they carry pollen, and the pollen is a protein food, which is what they use to feed the brood with, so you know that when they're bringing in pollen in these quantities, that there's definitely brood inside the colony, which means that there's a laying queen, which is very comforting.

I've also noticed there's a wasp lurking around.

Yes, and the wasp is trying to get into the colony to steal the bees' honey, but there's only a few around.

Most of them have died off now, and this is a strong colony, so they'll easily repel the wasp.

This bee here seems to be struggling to get in.

Oh, no.

It's got in now.

Now, Tony, how would you know how much honey is in here, if, indeed, there's any?

We do a thing called hefting, which is where you're lifting it up from the back to get a sense of the weight.

OK. Take the roof off, and if you want to just put your hand underneath and just lift it up and tell me how that feels... [Buzzing] My goodness me, that is heavy... Yeah.

really heavy.

Well, there's quite a lot of borage honey in there apart from anything else, so that tells you the bees like it here.

What I'm going to do now is, I'm going to take the crown board off, too, and just see how strong the colony is because you'll be able to see the tops of the frames inside.

I'm going to just ease it up.

Now, there will be a lot of bees, and they'll probably fly up a bit, so we'll just have it off for a little while, and now you can see lots and lots of bees on all these frames.

Oh, the smell, a smell of honey.

Wonderful.

Quite a lot of that is borage honey, which they've collected from just over the field there, and now they're bringing in ivy.

We're slightly out of season, though, and, although it's a nice day now, we don't really want to keep the hive open for very long because they keep it at a temperature that's roughly our blood temperature, and the longer the cover is off, the more it cools down, and then they have to heat it up again, so we've had it off now.

We had a look, and we can just drop it back again.

[Buzzing] ♪ Leith, voice-over: And I've put that delicious honey to excellent use.

I've been looking for you guys everywhere.

Oh.

Guess what.

You won't believe this, John Playfair, but I have made you a cake made of honey, our bees.

I didn't think you'd ever do it.

This is wonderful.

It must be leap year.

A honey cake from your bees.

From here?

From this honey?

That's wonderful.

From this honey bee.

Do you want a bit?

You bet.

Yep.

Yes, please.

If you just take a small slice out, I'll have the rest.

It's probably a bit sticky, but I'm sure you'll manage.

It is.

It's lovely, really nice, very moist.

Really very good.

Mm, terrific.

You must have had many honey cakes.

Marks out of 10?

Well, 9.9 recurring, I'd say.

Oh, that's pretty good.

Yeah.

Still a way to go, then.

Ha ha!

That's very good.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Next is one of my favorite time-saving kitchen hacks.

Cooking with really fresh vegetables makes all the difference, but prepping it sometimes seems a bit of a pain, but I want to show you some neat tricks.

First of all, we've got some rainbow chard here, and they're out of our garden, and you can tell that because they have got a few holes in them, and that means the bugs have been at them.

Rainbow chard, now, the easiest way to strip them quickly is to just fold the leaf over like that, put your hand on there, and pull the stalk back, and the stalk you can chop separately, which I will do in a minute... ♪ and then I think you should chop the stalks because, especially with rainbow chard, they're so pretty, and I often use them just to sprinkle on the top of something, even raw on a salad.

They look so nice.

♪ Right.

Herbs.

Sometimes it's really painful to take a long time to strip every leaf off a stalk of mint, so I'm just sticking the stalk of the mint through the colander, and then I'm pulling the stalk, leaving the leaves in the colander.

If you're chopping herbs and they're loose leaves like that, it's quite difficult if you just start like that, go along because it's all to too spread out.

What you need to do is screw them all up into a tight, little ball like that so one hand is controlling them tightly and then with a sharp knife, just slice it like that... ♪ and then you've got pretty well what I'd call roughly chopped, which is nice for most things.

If you want to chop it a bit more, then you do the classic thing of just putting a straight hand, straight fingers, on the end of the knife and with the other one just whacking up and down like that.

♪ Leith, voice-over: I do love good food, and it's important to me to support the equally passionate suppliers who are right on our doorstep.

Living in the Cotswolds, we are really spoiled for choice when it comes to local food producers, whether it's meat or dairy or even just making jams and chutneys.

It's really difficult to be a small, independent business, and, for me, these are my true food heroes.

♪ Davey, voice-over: My name is Christopher Davey.

Just before lockdown, I had started The Cotswold Guy as a food-delivery service.

I found myself traveling round to all the different farms, buying eggs from a certain farm, sourcing all the artisanal products and the oil, the rapeseed oil that's made locally, and I just found no wholesale supplier had all of these artisanals together, and then we have a production kitchen out the back which now makes our famous sausage rolls.

♪ The ethos is to source as much as we can locally-- which, amazingly, we can source so much from the Cotswolds-- but then just really to champion British food, so our sausage roll, Scotch eggs, pork pies, shepherd's pies, things like that, we just, yeah, use the best ingredients we can find and put a lot of love into the food.

I think people feel that from everything I do.

I think details is the key.

I'm very detail-orientated, but I just love to push the flavors, as well, and finding the best produce to start with, you're already on the best track, so I think that's the key, really.

Leith, voice-over: But there's one thing Chris makes that is his pride and joy.

Davey, voice-over: The chutney is something I've been doing for years.

It's made with red bell peppers, garlic, ginger, some cherry tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar, and then it's just cooked low and slow, got a lovely... lovely deep, you know, like, almost smoky, sweet, spicy richness to it.

♪ So our pizza nights, they are very popular locally, and, again, it's something we put a lot of love into, so we've designed a beautiful pizza menu.

We make a Napoli-style dough with a 72-hour proof.

We have a wood-fired oven here at the Gagingwell location Farm Shop.

At the moment, the pizza nights are just on a Friday, and we just have great support locally.

♪ Look at that.

That's it.

It just makes me incredibly proud, to be honest, to see people enjoying the food and to be enjoying coming to the place.

It's just nice to see that people are experiencing and seeing the love that's gone into everything.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Coming up, John is in the kitchen giving me a hand with some pretty good nibbles.

Leith: So that's my little goat's cheese, honey, and thyme canape.

Want a taste?

♪ Mm.

Mm.

That is really good.

Leith, voice-over: I've bullied John into joining me in the kitchen, and we're going to show you something really delicious that couldn't be simpler to make.

♪ Leith: John and I are both huge fans of food on toast, stuff on toast.

I just believe that almost anything that tastes delicious on a plate will taste even better on toast, so today I want to do very simple, little canape on toast, which is going to be just little rounds of French bread like this... and I'm going to fry them in a bit of olive oil.

John, you have to concentrate because in a minute, you're going to be making another version of this.

Right.

Oh, does that-- Put it--no, no-- other way up.

The other way up.

OK, so oily side down.

Yeah, trying to fry it.

OK.

I'm frying it in this little bit of oil.

[Sizzling] I don't know what I'm doing, cooking with a great, rattly bracelet on.

I must be mad.

Right.

♪ Are you waiting for them to go brown?

Yes.

I want them to go brown.

Right.

I think that'll do.

Yep, so that can come off, and I'm now I'm going to cut some slices, so I'm going to heat up a knife in some hot water because goat's cheese tends to crumble, and it's easier if you have a hot knife-- hot, wet knife.

♪ It's amazing difference, isn't it, from cutting it with a dry knife.

Yes.

It's magic.

Then I'm going to put a tiny dab of honey on each one.

Whoops.

Oop.

That wasn't very good.

This honey, guess where it came from, John.

It came from our hives.

It did, and then a few bits of thyme.

This is fresh thyme, and you need to take the leaves off the stalks.

Right.

We're going to stick that under the grill, and the grill is really hot because all I want it to do is to start to melt the cheese a little bit, and I don't mind if it doesn't brown too much.

I'd rather it was still pickable upable and it hadn't melted completely all over it.

♪ So, John, I think we need a little glass of wine to go with goat's cheese.

I thought you'd never ask, so come on.

I think we've got this white wine.

It's a Bianco Smeralda Vermentino from Sardinia... Really?

and, apparently, it's made from old vines, which makes it slightly darker, so can we get stuck in?

I think the whole idea of old vines is, they produce less grapes because they get-- they're getting tired and old, so they don't produce such enormous quantities of grapes, but what they do produce is rather concentrated, and, because they're smaller... [Pop] oops-- they have less water in them and more flavor in them.

That's the idea, so we'll see if it's true.

♪ Thank you.

♪ Isn't that good?

Very fresh, isn't it?

It's really nice.

Mm, but it's quite punchy.

So that's my little goat's cheese, honey, and thyme canape.

Want a taste?

♪ Mm.

Mm.

Oh, that is really good.

Isn't this good?

Yep.

♪ Leith, voice-over: Well, that's the starter done.

Now we're going to supersize it for a main course... ♪ but we are toasting the bread instead of frying it, that, instead of honey, we have this fantastic spicy red pepper chutney, and so we're going to butter the toast, spread it with spicy chutney, put some spinach on it-- no thyme this time, but spinach on it-- and then separately, we'll grill pieces of cheese and then stack them all up, so we need to get rid of that for the moment, and off you go buttering.

Butter?

Mm-hmm.

Toast?

That's right.

I am very mean, though.

You love your butter, don't you?

You like things to be heavily spread.

I don't, so-- But you do go all the way to the edges like a good Boy Scout.

This is a spicy chutney with a bit of chili in it, and I think it goes really well with the mild, creamy goat's cheese.

That's perfect.

Am I cutting this?

Now you're cutting that.

OK. Can I lift that onto the-- Right.

OK. How about that?

Right.

Leith, voice-over: You can use a hot knife to cut the cheese, but I've got another neat trick with a piece of thin picture wire tied to two corks.

And what you do is, you put the wire underneath the cheese, get the two ends together.

Ooh, that's working perfectly.

OK. You get on with cutting two of those, and I'll butter another... OK. one.

Can't have one.

We have to have two.

It's our supper.

Oh, no.

Right.

♪ No.

That's too much, darling.

Is it?

Yeah.

Would you prefer the hot knife?

Sorry.

I prefer to go and read my book and leave it to you.

This is being awkward.

There we are.

Ooh, that's very good.

Well done.

There we are.

There we are.

So what we've got there is toast and spread with butter and then with chutney-- in this case, a spicy chutney-- and then spinach on top of that, and that's all here, that little pile, waiting for the grilled cheese to arrive.

OK. [Sizzling] Ooh, this is very hot.

Ooh...

Right, so we need... two of those.

OK. Then you've got to put two pieces on each side.

I mean, obviously, we're being greedy.

You don't have to have two pieces, so that really isn't a very difficult thing to do.

I tell you what, it's absolutely delicious.

I must say, I normally find everything you do for taste 14 out of 10, presentation... [Snap snap snap snap] Two out of 10.

7.

Ha ha ha!

I know.

Presentation I'm not really interested in.

It's normally the big bowl and the-- Well, I think the food looks nicer if it looks casual.

I don't like food gussied up to within an inch of its life.

Well, you won't fail on that one.

Ha ha ha!

Leith: Well, I've been thinking about what booze would go well with goat's cheese and toast or a little canapes, say, and I honestly think that goat's cheese and tomato are a terrific combination, and both goat's cheese and beetroot are a terrific combination, so I thought a Bloody Mary, and I've just discovered this recipe, which is a little bit more complicated than just putting lots of Worcestershire sauce into tomato juice, but this recipe requires half tomato juice and half beetroot juice, and then the juice of a lemon, yes, and, yes, some Worcestershire sauce, a good shake of Worcestershire sauce, but then, interestingly, a tiny shake of both chipotle Tabasco and the classic pepper Tabasco, so both of those, so it's going to be quite spicy, and also--which is so interesting because I never thought of this, but it's really good because it gives it a touch of sweetness and acidity-- and that is a little bit of pickling liquid.

This is a pickle I made about a year ago, actually, of yellow beetroots which have rather lost their color in the vinegar, but I'm going to put a tablespoon of the pickling liquid into the tomato mix.

Can you use any pickling liquid?

Yes, because all pickling liquid is basically vinegar, sugar, and water...

Right.

so do you want to risk it?

Oh, my goodness, yes.

Come on.

Lovely.

Cheers, darling.

Good health.

Good health.

Could I have one of those?

♪ It's not overspicy, is it?

I think it's very nice, very interesting.

It's quite sweet.

It's the beetroot that makes it so sweet.

Do you like that?

Well, I do, I do, I do.

Well, shall I tell you something?

It's a virgin.

There's no alcohol in it.

You can always add a dollop of vodka.

Can we do that now?

Actually, I did feel that...

It lacked something?

it lacked something, and now I know what it is.

That's lovely.

Thank you very much.

♪ Do you know, that's very nice.

This was nice because it was very crunchy, but this is really soft, and it gives it a totally different taste.

Well, I'm glad you like it because it might turn up 5 hours' time as your supper reheated.

♪