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.

It's bizarre, to simultaneously feel completely hopeless about one thing and so incredibly blessed about everything else. But I think that's just how life is sometimes.

To say that we stayed in this weekend would be an understatement. On Saturday afternoon Rob, Sean, and I ventured out to the mall to do some Christmas shopping and literally bought one thing before looking at puppies and then going home. Not productive. At home, we watched movies and ate a huge seafood dinner of scallops, lobster, and shrimp with my parents. We sat on the couch by the fire on Sunday morning and drank tea. Sunday afternoon brought a cooking marathon between my mother and I, and then Rob and I took a walk down to the dock and sat on the boat for a while.

I spent so many moments this weekend looking around me and feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. This family, this man, this food and these things that I sometimes take for granted without a thought. I feel so, so lucky for this life I've been given.

Sometimes I wonder what type of mother I'll be. And then I get worried.

"Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyzes us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear, but rather to harness and master it." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm afraid of a lot of things. I feel the need to understand all the time. I can't go on the metro in DC. When something terrible happens, like the movie theater shooting in Colorado or the mall shooting in Portland or this most recent school shooting in Connecticut, I start changing my habits. We can rent that movie. I can buy those shoes online. I could totally just home-school my kids!

But then I would have a family who pretty much never leaves the house. Sometimes, as scary as it may be to admit it, I understand how people can develop agoraphobia. I love this world and everything it has to offer, and I love being in it, but some days it just feels easier to stay home.

If I feel anxious, scared, or sad about life then I at least want to learn something from it. But sometimes that lesson doesn't show up. And when twenty children go to school one morning and don't come home, the moral of the story--if it's even on its way-- feels very far from us.

My heart is broken for everyone who has been affected by the violence this year--for everyone whose holidays will be different and sad this month. There is never a good or easy time to lose someone that you love. I am so, so sorry. My thoughts and prayers are constantly with you all.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18