00:00My husband complains bitterly.
00:01He says, our house is a cake-free zone,
00:04and you should have married Mary Berry.
00:06Hi, Delish.
00:07I'm Prue Leith, and this is What's On My Plate.
00:14First thing I do when I wake up in the morning,
00:17like all good Brits, is I have a cup of tea,
00:20which has to be decaf and with cow's milk.
00:22I mean, I don't mind almond milk or oat milk in coffee,
00:25but really, cow makes perfectly good milk.
00:28I don't normally have breakfast
00:29because I eat too much generally,
00:31and I'm not hungry in the morning,
00:32so it's a good opportunity to just not eat.
00:35But if I'm in a hotel and I can't resist it
00:37because there's this wonderful buffet,
00:39then I'll have yogurt and granola and fruit
00:41or something like that.
00:42The only time I make breakfast at home
00:44is when I have the whole family there,
00:46and then I make good old-fashioned British fryer.
00:49Sausage, bacon, fried bread, mushrooms, eggs,
00:52everything that I can lay my hands on.
00:55Is there any food that you think Americans do better?
00:58Well, I think generally Americans do breakfast better than we do.
01:01To eat breakfast in a diner in New York is a great pleasure.
01:05And the thing I love about American breakfast is
01:07I think you make the best eggs benedict,
01:10much better than the French, for example.
01:14Well, normally, I make lunch for everybody who works with me,
01:19and I make fresh soups all the time.
01:21I'm a terrible leftover cook.
01:23I can't bear to throw anything away.
01:25We have sort of amorphous green soup.
01:27It's just every green vegetable goes into my green soup.
01:30My husband sometimes complains that all he ever gets for lunch
01:33is soup and cheese,
01:35and we buy really good cheese from a really good cheese monger.
01:38So I reckon they're jolly lucky to get good soup, good bread, good cheese,
01:43which is what we have most days.
01:44I always cook from scratch.
01:45I've never...
01:46I don't think I've ever had a Deliveroo meal in my life,
01:50and I never buy ready meals because I love cooking.
01:54And I feel sorry for people who can't cook
01:56because they're forced into buying ready meals and take out food.
02:00I'm not a snob about food.
02:02I mean, I often buy frozen puff pastry, for example,
02:06because the puff pastry that you buy frozen, most of it,
02:09is really good quality, and all it is is butter and flour,
02:12which is how you'd make it.
02:14Do you ever get takeout?
02:15If I was buying a takeout, it would probably be pizza
02:18because you'd know what the ingredients are,
02:20and they're delicious.
02:21You know, good pizza's lovely.
02:22I like Nando's.
02:23I just like their grilled chicken, and I prefer the thighs.
02:27You can buy the sauce in the supermarket now,
02:29and I often tell people,
02:31you just roll the pieces in Nando's,
02:34stick it in the air fryer,
02:36gets all crispy all under it and over it,
02:38and it's absolutely lovely.
02:43I almost never eat any snacks between meals.
02:47I might perhaps eat a plum or an apricot or a bit of fruit.
02:50Maybe it's because I'm so old,
02:51but I really sort of disapprove of it,
02:53because I think what snacks do is it takes the edge off your appetite,
02:57not enough to stop you eating the next thing,
02:59but to stop you enjoying it as much as you would.
03:02If you're standing on a railway station,
03:04you just look at everybody.
03:05Everybody's holding a bar of chocolate, popcorn or something,
03:09and then you have meals as well.
03:10What's your favorite meal?
03:13Dinner's my favorite meal.
03:15I think my favorite dish, if I've got time to make it,
03:18is a French cassoulet.
03:20It's basically a bean stew, but it has in it some spicy sausage,
03:24confit of duck in there, or slow-cooked lamb,
03:28or it doesn't really matter what.
03:29It's some meaty thing, but slow-cooked with beans.
03:33If I want to butter up my husband,
03:36I will get a really good tomahawk steak or a ribeye steak.
03:40Cook it very fast on a griddle,
03:42so that it is perfectly rare in the middle,
03:45and a really good steak is such a treat.
03:48We don't eat it often, but when we do,
03:49we get the best, and it's lovely.
03:52If I'm not working, John and I will just eat in,
03:55but every now and again, we'll go to a pub.
03:57We tend to try to find pubs that still do really old-fashioned things,
04:01like sausages and mash, or ham, egg, and chips.
04:04It's the classic English pub dish,
04:07but you can hardly get them anymore.
04:09They've all become gentrified, and they have very smart food.
04:12It is quite a treat to find an old-fashioned pub
04:15that still gives you egg and chips.
04:20My husband complains bitterly.
04:21He says, our house is a cake-free zone,
04:24and he should have married Mary Berry.
04:26Mary Berry was the cook who had my job on Bake Off before I had it.
04:30He says he should have married her,
04:31because she really does bake cakes all the time,
04:34and I hardly ever do.
04:35But I don't, because he's too fat anyway.
04:38So am I.
04:40Go-to dessert, mostly what we eat,
04:42is yoghurt with different toppings.
04:44It's wonderful because it's creamy,
04:46but it's not as unhealthy as just whipped cream or something.
04:49But you can put all sorts of things on it,
04:51you know, fresh fruit or crunchy tops,
04:53or crumbled up biscuits, or nuts, toasted nuts.
04:56It's a very good base for anything.
04:58I think my favorite dessert to make is probably a trifle,
05:02which is very English, but I love it.
05:04And you can make trifle out of any old leftover,
05:06piece of leftover cake, or raisin bread, or brioche,
05:10or even stale croissant.
05:11And you just put some sort of jam or spread,
05:14lemon curd, or marmalade, or something on it.
05:17Put it in a bowl, pour booze all over it,
05:20any kind of booze you like.
05:21Classically, it would be sherry.
05:22Get it really well soaked, then custard,
05:25and then cream on top. It's lovely.
05:28The only thing that I really don't like eating is peanut butter.
05:34And Americans love peanut butter,
05:35and the bakers are inclined to put peanut butter into cakes a lot.
05:39And I have to just pretend that I like it,
05:42because it's not the baker's fault that the judge doesn't like peanut butter.
05:46So I can't mark them down because they've got peanut butter in there.
05:50I don't mind the flavor of it, and if it's in the mixture of the cake,
05:53so that I don't get the texture, then it's fine.
05:56Of course, I'm eating cake all day, and I try to eat as little cake as I can get away with,
06:01and just in order to be able to taste it.
06:03I worked out that if I have an average amount of cake that I need to do to do my job,
06:10and I haven't eaten anything else,
06:12I will have just enough calories left for me to have a couple of good glasses of red wine for dinner.
06:18Sometimes when I'm filming, honestly, I live on cake and red wine.
06:22It's probably not the best diet in the world.
06:25Thanks very much for watching,
06:27and please be sure to watch The Great American Baking Show,
06:30streaming now on the Roku channel.
06:48live on this podcast program.
06:57We'll see you next time.
06:58Have a great day.
07:00Have a great day.
07:03Have a great day.
07:04Have a great day.
07:07Have a great day.
07:08Have a great day.
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