Maybe this seems silly, or maybe it seems like it's not actually a thing, but it's totally a thing, at least in my house. We have tea in the afternoons. I absolutely love having a fancy little tea party at home with my mom or one of my girlfriends.

Giving up milk was really hard for me at first, because I was both an avid latte and tea-with-sugar-and-cream drinker. Black tea and black coffee just didn't do it for me at first, but after a little bit of training and a whole lot of time and commitment and espresso shots, I was fine with it.

The trick to changing a habit is to make the new habit really special. I do that with my mom's beautiful bone china tea set and really good local honey. And then one day I discovered So Delicious' Coconut Milk Creamer, and it was like the part of me that used to love milk had died and finally made it to dairy-free heaven.

YOU WILL NEED

+ tea

(lately I've been loving this vanilla rooibos)

+ coconut milk

(get the kind that comes in a little carton like half & half)

+ local honey

(we get ours at the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-Op)

+ a Paleo treat or two (try these cookies)

  

It's pretty simple. But it can totally make your day better.

Who wants to come over for a cup?

Sometimes you have a very rainy weekend that was supposed to be 74 degrees and sunny, but then Sunday rolls around and the sun comes out and it's warm and all the winter-y rain from the two previous days have made the afternoon smell like spring, so you go to the grocery store with bare arms and your best friend and you buy fresh berries because it's time for some muffins.

I came up with this recipe by accident one time when I was making mini-muffins for this post on Skunkboy. I was going to follow a recipe and just substitute regular flour for coconut flour, and then I messed up the measurements and added a bunch of random things like shredded coconut and honey, but what I ended up with was actually the blueprint for a pretty good Paleo muffin base recipe. Then, you can add whatever you want to make a flavored muffin--this time I chose raspberries and chocolate chips.

There's a tiny bit of baking powder in these muffins and if you're a Paleo snob who's going to freak out about it instead of simply choosing not to include it, then we probably can't be friends anymore.

Ingredients:

Makes twelve big boy muffins.

--

6 eggs

4 tablespoons coconut oil

1 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

--

A 6 ounce container of fresh raspberries, washed and chopped

1/2 cup of Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips

(Save a few of the chocolate chips for the top.)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Melt the coconut oil in a bowl and add flour first, then eggs, and then all other ingredients.

3. Mix the batter together and spoon into greased muffin tins (you can use more coconut oil or an olive oil spray).

4. Bake for 25 minutes, (halfway through you can top them with the extra chocolate chips), broiling at the very end to brown the tops if necessary.

(I had to open one up so you could see inside. And also so I could take a bite.)

Whether it's rainy and cold or sunny and warm, muffins are perfect for whatever season you happen to be in.

I'm not going to say anything to you about this recipe except for you're welcome, because it is beautiful and it came to me in a vision the way I picture saints appearing to people in burlap cassocks, standing on old rocky hills somewhere in Italy. 

There's a restaurant in the DC area that I love that has a whipped feta dip with hunks of jalapeno in it, and it is so good but it's a bit too much dairy for me. They also serve it with pita bread, and I had to have cucumbers which is fine, I guess, but I thought I'd make my own version that wouldn't make me feel sick or deprived in any way.

I made my dish more Paleo by using goat cheese instead of feta and then adding bacon, obviously.

Ingredients:

For the sweet potato wedges:

Two sweet potatoes 

(Make more if you want, but you'll run out of dip.)

A liberal drizzle of olive oil

Salt and pepper, to taste

For the goat cheese bacon dip:

A four-ounce package of plain goat cheese.

Two green onions

Two teaspoons of coconut milk

(More coconut milk if you want your dip to be thinner.)

Four strips of crunchy bacon.

1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Two or three shakes of crushed red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Take the goat cheese out of the fridge, out of the wrapper, and into a bowl to get to room temperature.

2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

3. Wash your sweet potatoes really well. Leave the skins on if you want (I think you should) and scrub them!

4. Cut each sweet potato into eight wedges, lay on a baking sheet, and drizzle olive oil over them. 

5. Spread the oil around with your hands and get each wedge really covered. Add salt and pepper.

6. Pop 'em in the oven for about 25 minutes, turning them every ten minutes or so.

7. With a hand mixer, whip the goat cheese up until it's a little fluffy, and add the coconut milk. Whip some more.

8. Add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and garlic powder. Whip it!

9. Add crumbled bacon and sliced green onion. Whip it good!

10. Put the dip in a bowl and serve with sweet potato wedges. 

Now dip the sweet potato in or smear some of it over the wedge with a knife.

You could also totally use this as a topping on a baked sweet potato.

But I wanted fries.

Seriously, bring this to a holiday party.