Black bottoms have been a staple in my household for as long as I can remember. They’re a chocolate cake with a cream cheese and chocolate chip mixture on top, hence the name ‘black bottom’. I made some a little while ago and now want to share the recipe with you all! This is one of my all-time favorite things that my mother makes for us kids.

Ingredients

Directions

I was standing in my kitchen one day trying to figure what I could eat that was filling and healthy. Without even thinking, I found myself grabbing all of these random ingredients. In the end, I had created this banana oatmeal smoothie that was actually very, very delicious!

Here’s all you need to know:

I’m not sure if you all know this, but I’m a vegetarian! Have been for over five years. That being said, the first couple of years of my veg-hood, I wasn’t a very smart eater. My diet consisted of carbs and sugar and it was just a horrible mess. I was only in the 8th grade when I decided to go without meat so I definitely was too young to really think about my body and how I treated it.

I didn’t start to concern myself with the health of my body until 2012, but starting in 2011 I finally came around to the idea of veggie burgers and well, putting protein into my body. I had taken out a giant portion of my diet and for years I simply just did not find anything to replace it. Veggie burgers were my first step towards helping my body out again.

I found this amazing recipe on a blog a few weeks ago and had to try it out! I was lacking in a lot of ingredients for other kinds of burgers so I was pleased to see this one was comprised of some other things. In all, it was a pretty good burger. I have to say if you decide to make this, make the patty thinner than I did! I’m going to try this again and can guarantee that if it’s thinner, it’ll be even better!

I served my burger with seasoned waffle fries and a fried egg white!

There is such an odd story behind this.. I was hungry the last week and was searching for something to eat, naturally. I knew I felt like a smoothie but we only had non-smoothie fruits like apples and blueberries and a few bananas. Never would have put them together. Few hours later, get onto tumblr, THERE IS A RECIPE FOR THOSE EXACT INGREDIENTS IN A SMOOTHIE!

It was so weird. and the best part? The smoothie is GOOD! and good for you! All of the fruits involved are high in fiber so downing this will have you set! This is the Friendly Fiber Shake!

The amount of milk that you add in will decipher how thin/thick the smoothie is. Mine was quite thick so next time I’m going to add a bit more in!

I have a sweet spot for food bloggers! Even before I knew what a blog was, I liked looking at food websites and checking out recipes. When I found out about the website StumbleUpon earlier in my high school years, that ‘like’ turned into a ‘love’. I stumbled upon so, sooo many amazing blogs and began to compile a bookmarked list on my computer of them all! Recently I went through and kept all of my favorites only and also made a separate folder for recipes. It seems whenever I feel like making something and pull out that folder, these guys win 3 out of 4 times. They’re what I’m known for! I make these things so often.

I posted a photo of my heart shaped/red and white ones in my ‘February Instagrams’ post here and I knew I couldn’t just post a photo without following up with the recipe. Lo and behold, here it is! These brownies came from All Things Mamma and the girl behind it, Kasey, really does run a great blog, coming from somebody with no children! So definitely go check her out 🙂

I eat salad. A lot. Being a vegetarian, it’s my main food group practically. I always have either spinach or romaine for my greeny base with carrots and cheese and then usually one other thing to add in. I don’t like dressing nor is it particually good for you so I always have to work hard to make sure my salads have enough flavor to them. A lot of the time I’ll throw in a few of my absolute FAVORITE faux chicken strips by Gardein (they’re called crispy tenders, if you’re looking for them) but lately no stores have happened to have them so I’ve been having to substitute. Today, that substitution was shelled edamame. Mine are from Trader Joe’s and you usually just pop them into some boiling water for a little while and then voilá! I decided to chill mine under some icy water before adding it to the rest because I didn’t want melty cheese. That’d be weird.

Here’s the finished product!