Lionden Landing

Avoiding dairy is hard. It hides in everything. Since we determined that Froggy is allergic to milk I have been getting quite the education. Ofcourse if you are avoiding dairy, you cannot have milk chocolate. But semi-sweet chocolate or dark chocolate should be fine right? No so. Most brands still have milk in them in some form. My holiday baking became a real challenge. The gingerbread, sugar cutouts, cranberry jumbles and pumpkin cookies were all easy. But how can you not have chocolate. That is what makes the cookie platter look decadent. So off I went to investigate. Someone must be able to help me. Ghiradelli did. Their semi-sweet chocolate is absolutely dairy-free. The cooking can continue. Once again I am able to bake with ease. So Ghiradelli definitely works for me. For other tips check out Rocks in my Dryer .

Lisa at Stop and Smell the Chocolate has challenged us to share romantic chocolate. These gifts are not necessarily romantic but they are super special to me. The first I consider romantic. You be the judge. For my birthday one year, several years after we started dated, my husband gave me a bucket of chocolate fudge. No fudge is not my favorite form of chocolate. No this was not some uber-fancy fudge that made the gift so special. What makes the gift so special is knowing me. "Fudgebuckets" is my expletive of choice when I am frustrated. It has been since I was in middle school. But only my darling wonderful romantic husband would turn that into a gift. I kept that bucket of fudge for many many years sealed just as it was given until it got bumped in a move and started to become a science experiment. I cried when it went into the garbage. The second is a gift from the past. Tomorrow is Froggy's American birthday and we welcomed it tonight as we welcomed Shabb...