White Pizza Dip   -  Pizza Party Kale Chips  -   Kale Salad

15 kale recipes from Cooking Light

Whoa, it's cold out!   *shivers*
Seriously, when the hell did Winter happen?!? 
It wasn't anywhere near as freezing out two or so weeks ago.  
Meh...  
I hate winter.

But anywho, as I had mentioned in my previous post, I while I don't make new years resolutions per say, I encourage goal setting and I do my fair share of reflection on a regular basis, thus I did my fair share of reflecting on the ups (most of which transpired at years end) and downs of 2012 and have concluded it to be a year of life lessons that I needed to relearn,  or at least be reminding of.   In hindsight, I have come to realize that reluctance and denial resulted in the same scenarios playing out over and over and over again.  

Reliving the same situations with the same circumstances, and having the same experiences with the same people with each time being equally miserable if not worse than the last is  one of the worst feelings ever.  Why it took so damn long for the little light bulb above my head to switched on is beyond me, but when it did a wave of insight and self awareness washed over me.  I was stuck - and the only way to get unstuck was to see the reality of the situation(s) and learn from the experience, otherwise there would be no moving forward.  Life as a whole was stale, my progression in life stagnant, and as I reached each breaking point, I lost a little more of myself in the struggle.  The time had come to let go and/or let be.  Intuition had been screaming for months, telling me to stop thinking, stop excusing, stop trying and hit the god damn eject button on this miserable existence.  Each and every time, instead of listening to intuition, I would ignored it and more often than not, would end up doing the exact opposite.  Seeing how far that's taken me over the past year (and through the two years of my last relationship), and accepting that I had nothing  to lose, I wasted no time on looking (or for the new year) and instead lept... right into the most significant lesson of them all -

Its safe to say I have my work cut out for me with this whole intuition thing more so that what is typically anticipated due to the fact that I've been ignoring it for years. Fortunately I love a challenge and developing my intuition is a goal I haven't worked on in ages.  Oh and speaking of goals, the following four resources are worth checking out - 

Is it just me or did 2012 fly by at an alarming rate?!  Not that I am complaining - in fact, I'm happy to see it end - but hot damn, this year went by fast!  

Tis the season for reflecting upon the past and setting New Year's Resolutions for the year ahead. 

Cyberspace is buzzing with sugar coated pep talks encouraging readers to set their annual New Years resolutions, which more often than not, pertain to lifestyle a change, but I know you aren't expecting to find that fuckery here.  Not that I frown upon committing to the achievement to ones personal's goal, cause I don't.  And its' not that I don't believe in you, cause I do.  And I have total faith that you can achieve whatever it is you set your mind too, cause you can, but I am realist and thus calling it like it see it (and by it, I mean New Year's Resolution Success Rate Statistics) ....  

Disheartening statistics and anti-resolution speeches aside, it should be noted that I whole heatedly agree with the reflecting on the past aspect of the new year, as it serves as a means of re-evaluating ones needs and assessing whether or not the direction your headed in is complimentary to getting said needs met.  Along with this, I'm all for setting personal goals, thus if the new year is when you would like to do your reflecting and setting then by all means ...

As for myself, I did my fair share of reflecting on the ups and downs of the past year, and while I wouldn't say 2012 was a bad year, it wasn't much to write home about either. 

I won't bore you with a rehash of the gruesome details but it's worth noting that life slapped me around with several valuable - and much needed - life lessons along the way, one of which I seem to have had a diversion to initially learning. That particular gain is worth writing home about., or at least worth blogging about, as I can honestly say I feel good about it.

and on that note, I'm off like a prom dress!

Yeah, I know.  *smacks self*  I should know better at this point and I apologize for my lack of judgement.  Truth be told, I anticipated them totally sucking due to difficulty keeping the dough together as I scooped it out onto the pan.  Instead, they were phenomenal.

O M F G - this dip is amazing, and by amazing I mean make this IMMEDIATELY!  

I stumbled upon this recipe for White Pizza Dip on La Phemme Phoodie and it was love at first sight.  I used to adore white pizza and even made a few vegan pies post-break up with dairy.  However, white pizza in dip form was a new deliciousness that I had yet to explore and to the top of the kitchen adventures bucket list it went.  I hit Trader Joe's later that day for vegan cream cheese (Note:  Joe's brand is, in my opinion, better than most of the other vegan cream cheese brands.  However I would describe it as good not great) and was indulging in what's now my new favorite dip before sun down.  

I halved the original recipe (which can be view here on Veggie Converter) and made it slightly more complicated via incorporating a homemade vegan cheese sauce AND I made a small pizza dough, which I used to make a batch of fresh bread sticks.  Well worth the extra effort in my opinion.  However, you can skip the cheese sauce and instead increase the mozzarella and cream cheese as well as dip with store bought crackers/bread of choice.  Along with this, I added more kale than the original called for as I really needed to use up what I had.  If you hate kale - or don't have any on hand - instead of omitting it out entirely, substitute it with a different green vegetable.

the herd ...

the genuine people & positive energy in my life ...

recent business opportunities ...

 steady work ...

the roof over my head ...

electricity ....

purring ...

snuggle parties ...

nakedness ...

 my blog readers ...

:-)

my list goes on, but I have to dash off as I'm working today at the Country Club.
Until next time, I'm off like a prom dress