Saturday Experiment: Nutella Swirl Muffins

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What kind of Google fail caused my search for 'Winter Gazebo Maintenance' to land on this page?" (hint: remove the quotation marks.) 

Alternately, if you actually came here on purpose (which is unlikely), you're thinking, "This chick who makes lentil soup that tastes like dirty water experimented in the kitchen? What kind of disaster was that!"

Well ye of little faith (and ye of the winter gazebo maintenance), let me tell you it was awesome! It was the best thing I ever did. Nothing will ever compare to my Nutella Swirl Oatmeal Muffins. Nothing!

Except maybe the dirty water lentil soup I'm making right now.

Is this sink or swim?

*sigh* It sounded like a good idea at the time. I saw this recipe online for Nutella Swirl Banana Muffins where you just made banana muffin batter as usual, dolloped Nutella on the top of the batter once it was in the pan, and then swirled the Nutella into the batter with a toothpick.  It sounded so simple:  I could just swirl Nutella into any muffin and have a tasty, wavy gravy, Nutella treat.

Alas, that was not so. First of all, oatmeal muffin batter is kinda thick. Second of all, because it's been cold, my Nutella was kinda solid.  The result was that I couldn't actually swirl the Nutella into the batter. Instead it kinda just mushed into the top of the muffins. 

The result was oatmeal muffins with gross-looking Nutella tops. You should be happy that I don't take pictures of my food before it's eaten.

It wasn't bad. I washed it down with some coffee. Spousal Unit liked them, but Spousal Unit also drinks almond milk. 

Fortunately I only ruined half the batch of muffins. I just put chocolate chips in the other half and called it a day.

It's Oatmeal and Vegetables, It MUST Be Healthy!

The snack closet was full of Veggie Straws again.  After many weeks of having only multigrain crackers and granola bars (not the tasty ones, the healthy ones) and Motts Fruitsations, today the snack closet offered up Veggie Straws.  You could actually hear people give little cheers upon opening the closet.  They'd open the door, expecting some kind of high-fiber hell, and instead exclaim, "Hey!  Veggie Straws!  Awesome!"

It's a very sad day when Veggie Straws cause that much excitement.  Of course there were also revoltingly bad-for-you "granola" bars.  You really didn't want to read the ingredient list before taking one.  I did and discovered that they contained shortening (SHORTENING!). I put the bar back, thus depriving myself of a "yogurt dipped" "chewy" bar.

I can feel myself getting healthier.

I ended up just having my homemade oatmeal-chocolate-chip muffin.  And some Veggie Straws, because you need your veggies.  I had actually wandered into the break room when Burton, the Senior Product Manager, was telling Arthur, the Senior R&D Manager, that the Veggie Straws must be healthy because it said right on the bag that they were "Garden Vegetable" flavour.  Then he started reading the ingredient list: They're made with potatoes, spinach powder and tomato paste.   We all agreed -- well all except for Arthur, who eats only whole grains and no animal fat -- that the Veggie Straws were very healthy.

And  of course I had coffee.  I've finally figured out how to bend Silvia to my will, but more on that another day.