Orange Lightening Cake

I love cake!  It is the undoing
 of many of the diets that I start!  When we met Annabel last week, we were discussing some of her cake recipes and she said, if we liked those, we must try the Lightening Orange Cake.

 Oh my goodness, this cake is delicious!  I love the fact that the whole orange goes in, and it's all made in the food processor.  Annabel says in her notes that "whizzing the whole orange in the food processor keeps the cake wonderfully moist and tender" - and it does!  All the ingredients are things you already have in your pantry.  I love that.  Not having to make a special trip to the supermarket to get that one ingredient that you don't just have.

The cake took an hour to cook and the smell filled the house and as Annabel says, "makes a house feel like a home".  Definitely try this one, it certainly was lightening to make, no time at all to throw it all together and is just so YUM!

Meeting Annabel...again!

What a special night!  Yet another chance to meet and chat with Annabel.  It was the launch of her latest book, Simple Pleasures and we were lucky enough to have a lovely dinner and nice wine while we listened to Annabel speak.  We then had the opportunity to have her sign our books and talk with her.  I spoke to her again about my blog and she seemed genuinely honored to have her recipes blogged, very Julie and Julia!  She is so natural and it just feels like she could be one of your "besties" without even trying!  We talked about a few of our favourite recipes, and she suggested we have a go at the Orange Lightening Cake which I will post next.



As she did last time we met, Annabel wrote a lovely message in my copy of Simple Pleasures, it reads:
"Dear Catherine
With very best wishes for happy cooking!  I look forward to you blogging your way through this book in the next year or less!
Annabel Langbein"

Barbecued Lamb with Spicy Rub

Thanks to my wonderful friends who gently remind me "that it's been a while since we've had an addition to the Annabel Blog", here is the next recipe with my apologies that it's been so long! 
It has been an exciting week with the purchase of Annabel's latest book, Simple Pleasures which is such a pleasure to read!  I am thinking that with my collection now grown to three of Annabel's books, I am going to have to blog more and more of the latest recipes as I hate being confined to just one book!  So at this rate, to get every recipe, in all 3 books made, I'll still be blogging in the year 2102 (only 90 years away!) - what a wonderful thought!

Spicy Rub is easy to make and so full of flavour, my mouth was watering as I was making it.  I used long red chillies but if you wanted to add the smaller ones for extra heat that would be just as good - depends on what you like.

As with most of Annabel's gorgeous recipes, they are so versatile! Once made, this rub can be used as the base for a salad dressing or added to yoghurt to make a spicy dipping sauce - Yum!






My butcher de-boned a nice big leg of lamb for me and I added the spicy rub and left it in the fridge for a couple of hours.  Unlike in Annabel's book, I didn't have a perfectly shaped stone to weigh my meat down on the barbecue so as suggested by Annabel, I wrapped a brick in foil and it did the job!

Fifteen minutes on each side the the meat was cooked to perfection!  Lovely and pink in the middle with the taste of lemon, cumin and ginger seeping through.  Delicious!

Catherine