Oh Fudge — Divvies cookbook contest

The book publisher for The Divvies Bakery Cookbook contacted me last month, just when I was missing all of you and missing writing about our family's allergic adventures. They offered to send me a review copy of the cookbook, and an additional copy for one of my blog readers.

They also sent me an additional freebie: the recipe that's in the cookbook for dairy-free and nut-free chocolate fudge. (It isn't soy-free, unfortunately, as it uses a soy creamer.) Click on the image below, and you'll get a larger version of the allergy-friendly fudge recipe from the cookbook.



So I whipped up a batch of this fudge. I used dried cranberries instead of marshmallows because I like having a little bit of sour in with all the sugar of fudge. The recipe is really good, and unlike a lot of dairy-based fudges that I've made in the past, this one actually crystallized and turned into a really tasty, just-right chocolate fudge.


As you can tell, the kids like them too.


And as I mentioned above: You too can win a copy of this cookbook! Just leave me a comment on this post, and I'll enter you into the random draw. If you're having trouble leaving a comment, you can also email me, and I'll enter you that way. This contest will run from now until midnight on September 5, 2010, and I'll get my husband to do a random draw of all entries. Then I'll contact the winner for an address, and send that to the publisher, who'll mail the cookbook out.

Full disclosure: I wasn't paid to write this post, but they did send me a free cookbook as well as the one that they'll be sending to the prize winner. I'm always happy to promote books that help other allergic families, so good luck to all of you who are entering the contest!

Did you miss me?

Yeah, it's been a while since either of us updated the blog. Tony posted in January, then we had the Olympics in February, and things were rather hectic around town. (Yes, we got to go to the opening ceremonies — the whole thing was an unbelievable experience, and I've become an Olympics junkie.)

The allergic angle: nothing they served at the venue was safe for the kids except for the pop and water. Even the fries had a dairy coating. Thumbs down to them. I'm just glad that they let us bring our own food into the venue once I showed them the epipen and benadryl. The Olympics venues were very high-security, and all the ticket pages said that we weren't allowed to bring our own food in except for medical situations. And they wanted us to get to the opening ceremonies at least 3-5 hours before the event started. Yeah, you'd panic too, wouldn't you, with two hungry allergic kids, and not allowed to bring food in with you?

I guess I'm now doing a quick summary of this year so far!

Andrew finished first grade, and only had one bad allergic reaction at school this year, when his teacher fed him yogurt ice cream. Yes, she didn't realize that yogurt is dairy. At least that's what she told me on the phone. Fortunately, it looks like his dairy reaction is getting a lot weaker — he just went off to the bathroom and vomited a couple of times, and didn't get hives. He didn't even tell her that he'd vomited until he was done.

And then she tried to use the epipen on him, even though he wasn't having breathing difficulties. And when we looked at the epipen that night, it hadn't actually been activated. (I couldn't blog about it this politely at the time; distance and time is making this a lot easier to write. And his teacher this September is getting an epipen trainer from me, and I'm going to watch her use it on an orange or something. Oh yeah — here's a useful link: free epipen starter kit/trainer available here!)

Both boys went to the allergist in May. Andrew's still allergic to the same things, but we can definitely take eggs off his list. The good news came from Geoff's test — he only had very small wheals for nuts, and no bumps at all for eggs, shellfish or dairy. So we've let him have all of those, and he hasn't had any allergic reactions so far. My fingers are definitely crossed!

The summer's gone really well for both kids. We signed them up for a crafting program, where they did papier maché, clay sculpting and poured candles. Andrew got a lot out of this program because he has such a passion for building and crafting. For me, it was my first experience with dropping them both off for a "camp" experience without a family member around. I made lunch for them, and packed lots of fruit, safe granola bars and cookies, and left the epipen and benadryl for emergencies. And both kids had a great time, and nothing happened except that they got too busy to eat their lunches properly, and had a great time with other kids.

Okay, I'm being rather verbose here. Apparently, I've missed blogging, and I've missed all of you! I'll be back soon. My goal is to write at least once a week, and I've got a cool contest coming up — Divvies Bakery has given me a copy of their cookbook to give away — I'll have that announcement up in a day or two!