Pinterest: Success or Fail?

It’s time again for me to tryout one of my bazillion pins on Pinterest. Again it’s food; Banana Oat Greek Yogurt Muffins! I’ve been eyeballing these little muffin guys for awhile. I’m not really one for banana and chocolate together but I thought I’d give it a go anyways. They are supposed to be healthy and I consider a muffin more of a treat so a healthy treat is all the better. The recipe comes from Running With Spoons. There’s really not much to the recipe. It’s rather super easy to get together.

RECIPE
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 ripe bananas
2 eggs
2 cups oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon
1 1/2 teaspoon
1/2 cup chocolate morsels

Right off the bat I changed a few things. I didn’t use plain Greek yogurt. I had vanilla on hand. I used three bananas. I had three so I figured why not? I threw in some walnuts, just 1/4 cup. Banana and walnuts are a match made in heaven. Lastly, I used dark chocolate chips. No big game changers here.

When you’re mixing all this up it looks like vomit. No lie. Vomit. This is everything but the oats and chocolate chips.

Speaking of the oats… I had a heck of a time getting the oats chopped up to a fine texture. I have one of those cheap-o mini choppers. I could only put 1 cup of oats in at a time and I shook the chopper as it ran to hopefully chop up every oat. This is as good as it got for me. I wanted it a bit finer but cheap-o wasn’t having it.

Alright, here’s everything mixed together. It’s a bit lumpy but that’s the non-finely chopped oats and the walnuts. Still a little vomit like. Sort like you just had a meal and it’s starting to process.

This recipe makes 12 muffins. You’re only supposed to fill the tins 3/4 full. Yeah, not happening. Each little guy was completely full. I did make sure to put a baking sheet under the muffin pan on the lower rack just in case there was spillage. 12 guys ready for the oven!

I did not sprinkle the tops with extra morsels. I didn’t think it was necessary. They turned a nice golden brown in about 19 minutes. My muffin tops aren’t as smooth as the original but we all know who is to blame for that (cheap-o).

This is what mine look like up close and personal.

I have to say surprisingly, even after looking at the difference between mine and the original, it’s good. It’s actually really good. I think it could stand to even have more bananas in it. I like the little bit of chocolate. It’s a taste of it but not overwhelming. The walnut gave the muffin some nice texture. The oats that cheap-o didn’t chop into a fine texture weren’t even noticeable. This is a definite success and a good change up for regular banana bread.
Here’s the calorie count for 1 muffin 159 calories for Running with Spoons version. Mine was a bit higher at 181 calories. That would be the walnuts doing.

Scrappy Cat Bed

Last Saturday, I think Hubby and I lost our minds. We stopped into the pet store to pick up just a few items. Long story short we’ve adopted two little orange tiger kittens. What makes this so bonkers is that we have two cats already at home. We are officially out-numbered!

The twins have a hand-me-down sleepy cube from the big cats. The bad thing about the cube is that it’s way to light and the twins love to play in it. The cube starts under the computer desk and migrates around the computer room. I’m a bit of a spazz and them moving it from the original designated spot drives me crazy! So I decided to make them one with a heavy base so it won’t travel all around the room. Like all my best ideas it came to me in the wee hours of the morning.

I have some left over MDF from a few other projects so it would be the perfect weight. I also have so much fabric in my stash that using some for a project such as this is probably a good way to cut it down. I chose to use corduroy for the outside (my fav fabric) and chevron broadcloth for the inside. The bottom piece is 15″ x 15″ which is just an inch bigger than their current cube. It’s height is 15″ too.

Here’s all the fabric pieces. The side pieces are rounded triangles for a tent look. The two front pieces have a triangle opening. I was getting down to the nitty gritty with the chevron fabric and that’s why the front section has a backwards piece. No one except the twins will notice it and I’m sure they won’t tell.

I sewed up all four sides for both the inside and outside. You can really see that glaring piece that’s wrong. Just ignore it! I know it’s difficult but work with me. It’s like the mole from Austin Powers! MOLE!! 😆
Anyways…You can see the tent shape start to form in both of these pics.

I used a different color of corduroy on each side because I didn’t have enough for all four sides and it looks way more fun multi-colored. A little circus tent like. Cue the music!

To start to bring the ins and outs together, I sewed the front entrance together. I put the wrong sides together and top-stitched around the entrance. Then stitched in the ditch along the seams. It looks pretty sad. I sat it on my iron so you could see the shape.

I stuffed all the sides. The stuffing gave the tent shape and a bit of structure. I sewed all the sides about 1 3/4″ from the bottom to keep the stuffing in place. That extra fabric is going to wrap around the MDF and get stapled to the bottom. I also sewed up two squares to make the bed part and stuffed it as well.

This is the bed stapled into place. It’s quite squishy. By the way, totally Hubby’s arm. Mine didn’t turn mannish. At least, not that I’m aware of.

After stapling the bed on the sides of the MDF it’s time to staple the tent onto the bottom. Having one stapled in the sides and the other stapled on the bottom helped from having staples collide.

Last thing to do was cover up all the staples with the last square of fabric. I used Aileen’s Tacky Glue to fasten it to the bottom.

This is the final product. Not too bad for a “wake you up from a dead sleep” kind of inspiration.

Lastly, a couple pics of the twins. Trying to get their picture is ridiculous because they never hold still! So the first is Frankie about to chew on the bed. But that’s okay because the whole thing is squishy except the base.

The second is Felix whose on his way out of the bed. Neither in the posing mood I guess.