2009- A Recap!

Based as this blog is, on my very anonymity, I would love to do a monthly recap of the year 2009. Unfortunately, too many identifying details (such as what happened when) might, shudder, expose me, and so, I am forced to do it by season. But enough of that twaddle! Let us not waste anymore time and go to it:

Spring 2009:

There was wedding planning. One heck of a lot of wedding planning. There was also disparaging of other crazies getting married, talk about rocks, and even some desperate-housewife style-action. Save-the-dates were sent out by the bucket load and invitation mailings were crammed together in three days, and there was even a bachelorette party in Mexico!

Summer 2009:

This was one hell of a hot summer. He and I got married, moved to New York, where we couldn’t find an apartment for two weeks, moving all of my stuff from one city to New York took forever, and we began to settle into our new lives: there were a lot of arguments, learning to deal with each other’s horrible house habits, (mostly his, mind you) and therefore, a dearth of updates. I did make one change though: the site’s banner went from Pre-Marital Musings to No-Longer-Pre-Marital-Musings, in anticipation, of course, of one day making it Marital Musings.

Fall 2009:

We settled in so much that I began to get bored and felt like I’d lost myself.  While that may have been due to a natural let-down from the mad-cap energy of the wedding, it seemed to me that the endless routine of make bed-go to work-make dinner-watch mindless T.V. – go to bed was killing me. And so, we cut cable T.V. out of our existence, made some space on the bookshelves, and decided that if we were going to be living in expensive, stinky New York, we might as well make the most of it. And so, we started going out for dinner more,  managed to check out a couple of exhibitions over the weekends and I even started a food section of the Married Girl blog! The arguments didn’t quite die down- if anything, they got somewhat worse. That being said, when we weren’t fighting, we were definitely enjoying being with one another once again.

Winter 2009:

As it got colder and every weekend began to have a baking session uh, baked into it, I recovered myself, and found some of my normal zest for life again, partially because of one hilarious message, which helped me find my perverted inner 13-year-old again. That, of course, is who I really am. A perverted adolescent boy, one who can find the lewdness in everything.

And it is with this refound zest and pervertedness, that I bid you all a very happy new year, where everything is stronger, faster, better, longer than the last.

That’s what she said.

Chuckle.

I Make It Better Than The Cow Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Funny little story about my relationship with pineapple upside down cake: Him and I were in an intense long-distance relationship for a long time. During that time, like all normal long-distance couples, we experienced significant ups and downs with the relationship itself. It so happened that during one of the downs, Him got a little too close to another girl. So much so that it became a regular source of irritation for me- and so much so, that when there was a potluck dinner and The Cow brought a pineapple-upside down cake that Him came home and called me about, raving, (raving!), I developed a deep desire to buy every pineapple in the world and eviscerate it.

Him and I eventually patched our relationship up and got around to getting married and then married and then moving to NYC. But one thing remained: my hatred of everything pineapple upside down cake continued. He could have done anything: I witnessed begging, pleading, promises of doing dishes for months, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to make that damn thing. The COW had made it! Therefore, I wouldn’t. It was as simple as that.

Him, being Him, (read: as obstinate as a donkey), however, chose his moment when I was going through an eggs-butter-flour-need-to-be-mixed-every-weekend-or-I’d-spontaneously-combust phase. Barely had I started pondering out loud when he immediately managed to squeak out “pineapple upside-down cake”.  Lucky for him, I’d finally gotten over The Cow making the cake and set about making it.

Still, it had to be BETTER. BETTER THAN ANY PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE HE’D EVER TASTED IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE.

Witness: Pineapple Upside Down Cake- The Final Frontier. These are the journeys of honey and saffron and yogurt. Their ongoing mission? To sweeten places no ingredients have gone before.

1/4 cup butter for caramelizing the pineapples, plus 1/3 more for the batter.
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar (light brown works, but the flavor is not as intense)
9 slices pineapple
9 dried apricots (I used Turkish ones)
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of saffron (this is not your grandmamma’s pineapple upside down cake!)
Dash of vanilla essence
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup yogurt
1 egg

Heat oven to 350°F. In 9-inch square pan or 9 by 13-inch rectangular pan*, melt 1/4 butter in oven. When it’s suitably wet and golden, remove from oven, and add honey and vanilla. Mix gently, then sprinkle the saffron. Mix one more time. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the mixture and then arrange the pineapple slices over the goo. Place apricot in center of each pineapple slice. Add pan back to the oven and let the fruit drench and drown in the delicious syrupy goodness. You’ll want some very light browning- just enough that your kitchen smells like heaven- about 5-10 minutes.

In the meantime, cream together the 1/3 cup butter, and granulated sugar together in a medium mixing bowl. Add the egg and the yogurt, and mix. Sift together the remaining dry ingredients, then add to the batter in three separate moves, and stir until only just combined.

Remove pan, try not to lick the honeyed but super-heated pineapples, and pour the batter evenly over the fruit. Using a fork here may be especially helpful in getting an even layer on top, without mixing all the syrup and fruit into the batter. Remember, this is pineapple-upside down cake, not pineapple-inside-the-cake, but, don’t worry if you get some syrup on top of the batter either- this only makes everything better.

Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until toothpick/knife/cake-tester inserted in center comes out clean. And when you lay on the floor of your kitchen, as I did, and watch this cake bake through the oven door, try not to freak out that the syrup is boiling up through the corners and ruining the symmetry.  It doesn’t matter because it’s going to be upside-down! Just enjoy the unbelievably incredible smell of warm honey and saffron in your kitchen instead.

Remove from oven and immediately place a pretty heatproof serving plate upside down over pan; turn plate and pan over. Let the ambrosia drown cake before you remove the pan. Serve warm. Swoon. Watch as everything disappears in four hours.

*I used my 8 by 11 pan, which worked out just fine- except I had to use 6 pineapples and 6 apricots instead.

	Heat oven to 350°F. In 9-inch square pan, melt butter in oven. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over melted butter. Arrange pineapple slices over brown sugar. Place cherry in center of each pineapple slice.
2.	In medium bowl, beat remaining ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour batter over pineapple and cherries.
3.	Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately place heatproof serving plate upside down over pan; turn plate and pan over. Leave pan over cake a few minutes so brown sugar mixture can drizzle over cake; remove pan. Serve warm. Store cake loosely covered.

And In Social Networking News…

Out of nowhere, in my Facebook inbox this morning, I got the most interesting message from an aunt that specializes in interesting commentary. She’s an awesome aunty, but we’re not this close:

“I would like to see junior MG and Him very soon.”

Consider me officially grossed out and “ewwing” like a 13-year-old.