Rosemary Lemon Cake

I've had this recipe saved in my Pinterest account for a long time now.  I remember reading the steps when I first Pinned it and thinking "this is way too much work"!  So I saved it and never really looked at it again...until about 2 days ago.  Our family woke up to some very sad news, that our dear friend Rosalee had passed away.  She was always full of energy and in good spirits, she was happy and healthy, and then one day, she found out she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  She had been suffering for a while and then we got the news.  I had a heavy heart the morning I pulled out this recipe and I thought to myself that I'd make this recipe with all of its steps as way of dealing with the sad news.

This cake has so many steps because it's meant to be light and airy, sweet and tart, all at the same time.  I thought it was a perfect way to deal with my feelings, and the little one wanted to help!  This was my first time making a meringue and actually folding it into the cake batter. It was also one of the very few times I actually made my own cream cheese frosting. I almost ALWAYS skip this part and just buy the frosting because it's so much easier.  I decided today to go through all of the steps and do it all :)

The cake actually turned out to be fabulous!   I love that it had lemon and Rosemary that I was able to grab right out of my garden!


Here is the Pinterest recipe I followed:
http://bakerbettie.com/fluffy-lemon-rosemary-layer-cake/

Here are pics of all of the steps:

The completed cake!!!

Our friend Rosalee, May she Rest in Peace

Out of the oven

Batter with meringue folded in

Batter - the green specs are the Rosemary

Meringue with stiff peaks

Deena helping me out!!!

In the mood for fish...

I was in the mood to make something quick and easy and remembered I had some fish in the freezer.  We like to buy the frozen pack of Whiting from Publix and just keep it in the freezer for quick meals and so that's what I decided to make last night.  I started looking up Whiting recipes on Pinterest, but honestly, had very little luck.  So I decided to use a recipe for another type of white, flakey, fish and try it out.  It was sooooooooo good!  I made a lemon, butter, cilantro, pan-fried fish using my Calphalon skillet!  My husband bought me the skillet because I complained that I needed something better to make pancakes on (because I'm a horrible pancake maker), but I use it for EVERYTHIGN except making pancakes on and I absolutely love it!  LOL!  It was perfect for this fish recipe.  I followed the recipe below, but like I said earlier, I used Whiting and I used cilantro instead of the parsley.  I also used a little onion powder and garlic powder to marinate my fish with. This meal was honestly, super quick and easy!  I made a pot of rice and steamed some broccoli next to it - it was perfect!

Here's the link to the recipe:
http://juliasalbum.com/2015/10/trout-with-garlic-lemon-butter-herb-sauce/


Here's what it looked like:

Completed fish put back in the sauce

Cooking fish flesh side down 

Fresh garlic, cilantro, and lemon

Pan frying skin side down

Making the sauce - as a side note, I do not cook with alcohol and so where the recipe says to deglaze with white wine, I used a little broth instead

Completed meal