The rolling of the eyes: Allergies, smallergies…

A little while ago I saw this ‘someecard’ on Facebook and it made me stop and gasp slightly. My initial reaction was,

‘That’s a bit dramatic’,

closely followed by

‘that’s actually a bit close to the bone for some people’.

But, it made me stop and think – which is what it was designed for (by whoever’s card it is – I have no clue who made it). Now, I’m allergic to shellfish to the extent that I carry an epipen and have to inform people that I really shouldn’t be given anything that might have those nasty little critters in it. I really don’t fancy the whole puffing up like a balloon thing, or the being carted off to hospital not breathing properly/ at all scenario and I definitely (cos I’m a wuss) don’t like the whole idea of a pen full of adrenaline being pumped into me as I don’t react well to synthetic adrenaline at the best of times.

I’m used to dealing with this and for years I’ve got used to reading food/ item labels to ensure that they’re ok for me to eat. Plus, I also have lactose intolerance (which I kind of ignore at times as I love cheese…) so I have to be pretty careful with things that contain cream or milk.

That was all fine. It was easy dealing with it all when it was just me.

But then my little Monkey Clothbum came along and over time we’ve discovered that he’s lactose/cmpi (cow’s milk protein) intolerant and allergic to salmon. He also seems to be very intolerant to tomatoes (which is being checked very soon at our next allergy clinic appointment) and we’re unsure of his reaction to a lot of other fish and have been told to avoid nuts.

Marvellous…

It obviously makes cooking/ finding foods that he can eat a little (let’s be honest, quite a LOT) more tricky and I have to pretty much always be on the ball when we’re out and about. My friends and family are all rather brilliant with him and always check before they give him anything. It’s tough when one of their toddlers is wanting to feed him their goodies as he can’t have them. His little face is always a picture of abject misery and I do really feel for him.

However, what I have found increasingly annoying is the attitude that I’ve come across many times from others whilst I’ve been out. What is it about strangers wanting to offer my toddler food? I really don’t get it, but they do. He obviously looks very cute (I know I’m biased, but he’s a little stunner) and they must feel that he deserves a little treat.

ARGH.

Because, invariably, those treats seem to consist of either things he can’t have, or I’m not totally sure what they contain, I’ve found myself very politely and nicely having to sometimes physically move food away from him. I always say a very nice, ‘no thank you’ along with a quick explanation of why he can’t have it.

The majority of people are lovely about it – but then there’s the eye-rollers. They seem to often have another personality trait which manifests itself in a rather loud, rather pointed tutting sound.

Then these people act offended.

Grrrrr!

I think it’s maybe a generation thing. I’m not too sure. But, I really wish people would stop trying to give him food. He’s quite a sturdy, well-built little boy so he’s definitely not wasting away. My gold top boob milk, along with his love for his food is ensuring that he’s perfectly fine and really doesn’t need any extra treats.

Has any of you have to deal with this? Anyone got any good (and nice, polite) ways of explaining things to people? I know I’m destined to have a fair few years of running around after him, pulling food out of his hands at parties and so on, but it’d be fab to not have that whilst sat in a supermarket cafe!!!

Jazzing up meals: Gourmet Garden Herbs.

Before I even start, I’m going to admit something. I’m not the best cook in the world. I mean, I try, but I’m not brilliant and I’ve had my fair share of disasters. You only have to ask Mr Clothbum about the peppered beef and he’ll start making really disturbing choking noises. Then, there’s a whole plethora of other things that I’ve disastrously mucked up over the years. The limey chicken that tasted so strongly of lime it made us sick… the lasagne that tasted of nothing but burnt pasta… the list goes on and on and on…

So, yeah. With that fantastic background I decided that it’d be a fabulous idea to take part in the Mumsnet / Gourmet Garden blog off/cook off competition! This is a competition where bloggers sign up to receive a goody bag full of Gourmet Garden’s brilliant tubes of herbs/spices that make cooking really easy and stay fresh in the fridge for 3 months. I’ve used their products before and loved them, so I knew that they would be simple to use and could really make a difference to my cooking.

I reasoned with myself that it’d give me the kick that I needed to stop making ‘safe’ recipes that I know I can do well. I signed the digital form and started thinking about what I might make. Then I promptly forgot about it, due to lots going on at work and Monkey being rather sick.

When a cute little bag full of their products arrived on my doorstep, I was really excited as it was almost a surprise due to my rubbish memory, but then I started to panic. I had all these amazing products and absolutely NO idea what I was going to cook! There’s nothing quite like being prepared.

Now, I could have sat down and thought things through carefully – plan my assault on the culinary experience of my family. Plan how I was going to use each tube in great detail and then go shopping for appropriate ingredients.

But I decided not to!

I decided that as the competition wanted us to make our everyday cooking even more delicious with the products that I was going to do just that.

Starting immediately!

So I went and had a nosy in our fridge. I’ve been rather boring and organised in our shopping recently, so most of our foods are in the freezer as I’ve been buying things that we can keep for ages or batch cooking and freezing. So, in the fridge and around the house I found:

A 450g packet of lean steak mince
A sweet potato (one of the white ones)
Some frozen veg
An onion

I decided to make some burgers and use the Gourmet Garden Fresh Blends Thai tube. This is a really gorgeous, fragrant mix of lemongrass, chilli, garlic, ginger and coriander. Our little Monkey absolutely loves garlic so I thought this would be an interesting experiment! Here’s what I did:

I heated up a saucepan and fried the mince in it, not adding any oil. Once the mince was browned, I drained off most of the fat.

Whilst the meat was browning, I put some of the frozen veg (I would have used fresh but didn’t have any in) in a bowl, added a tablespoon of water and microwaved it for 4 minutes, as per the instructions.

I then chopped up an onion fairly finely before peeling and grating the sweet potato.

I squeezed about a third of the tube of Thai herbs/spices into the saucepan and then added the onions and sweet potatoes to the pan. I fried these until the vegetables became soft and then added a splash of Oatly oat milk to the pan to help the sweet potato to soften further.

Once the mince/veg was cooked through, I put everything (including the cooked frozen veg) into my blender and gave it a couple of pulses to make the mince a little easier for a toddler to chew.

I added one egg to the mix to help it all bind together and pulsed again.

When I got the mix out into a bowl, I noticed it was a little too soft to hold together as a burger so I improvised and added a small spoonful of plain flour, which made a massive difference.

I then used the teeniest amount of oil in the pan to fry the burgers with. They would have fallen apart on a grill, so a pan was a good option. They firmed up really well and I cooked them slowly to ensure that the egg was cooked through.

Using a cookie cutter, I cut small burger shapes out of muffins and added the Toddler’s burgers to them. They looked pretty good and he started licking his lips!

I then cooked our burgers in the same way and added them to muffins, along with a nice dollop of mayo

I cut the Toddler’s up into quarters and squished them down a little with my hand to stop them falling apart. He often throws ‘new’ foods straight over the side of his highchair onto the floor, but there was no stopping him with these burgers (much to my relief!) He tucked in straight away and polished off the lot remarkably quickly, making VERY loud lip-smacking noises.

Mr Clothbum and I also tucked into our adult versions and really enjoyed them. They were very tasty, nice and spicy but in a subtle way. I think I could have added more of the Gourmet Garden Thai spice/herb blend to ours but as this was a family meal I had to keep it from being too much for little man to cope with. Next time round, I’ll split the mince mix and only blitz the Toddler’s portion as it was a little too smooth for us and could have done with a bit more ‘chew’ to it.

All in all, this was actually a really great success! Monkey LOVED it and ate loads, which is great considering that for the past week he’s had no appetite due to being ill and has refused anything new. Mr Clothbum loved it and didn’t have a bad word to say about the burgers and I really enjoyed them too.

I’ll be making these again. Thank you, Gourmet Garden , for such a delicious addition to our meal!

(P.S. We don’t often have burgers at lunch – but you’ve got to live a little!!!)

daisytheclothbummum was sent the Gourmet Garden goodie bag as part of the competition. I wasn’t paid and all words, thoughts and opinions are my own.

Master Clothbum turns ONE!

I know I’ve been rather quiet for the past week or so, but there’s been a really, REALLY good reason.

My little man has just turned ONE! So, I’ve been party planning, party preparing and…well…

PARTYING!

Oooooh, we’ve had a fun few days! It’s been brilliant and really great to have all his friends, our friends and our family around. Little Master Clothbum loved every single second of it and it was delightful to watch him playing with his little friends, giving his family hugs and kisses and just having a whale of a time!

I had lots to do to prepare for the party (which I’ll blog about another time), as I wanted to keep all the food lactose free. That meant that if anyone gave little Monkey a bit of their food, I wouldn’t have to worry about having an ill baby firing out of both ends on his birthday. Relaxed Mummy = Happy Mummy!!!

I just thought I’d share a few photos with you, plus something a little personal.

I’d basically given up on having children, before I found out I was pregnant. We’d tried for so, so long (were actually about to start IVF) and I was losing hope. I was very sick throughout my pregnancy and, whilst I loved being pregnant, I spent the first half worried sick that I might lose the baby and the whole of the pregnancy feeling very woozy from low blood pressure and feeling dreadful from throwing up countless times a day.

But being pregnant was amazing. To feel that little life growing inside me was so wonderful.

However, that was nothing in comparison to the happiness that being a Mum has brought me.
Every day is a new and exciting adventure with our little man. I love watching him change, become ever more fascinated with the world around him and he is an utter joy.

My life is so much fuller and better with him in it and I love him more that he will possibly ever understand.

One year in… can’t wait to see what the next one brings us!

Walking, Talking, Discovering… It’s going to be a lot of fun!

Mmmmm chocolate!

Happy Sunday, everyone! I just thought that I’d whip on the blog and do a little post as I am in a very happy, buzzy mood.

Why, Daisy? I hear you say, leaning forwards in your chair/ stopping dead in your tracks – obviously eager to find out the cause of my most excellent state of mind.

Have I won the lottery? Sadly, no – that would involve participating, and I just keep forgetting to do so.

Have I found a pot of gold in my garden? Wouldn’t that be lovely, but alas, luck hasn’t shone down on me in that manner.

Has Monkey magically started sleeping through the night? Hmmmm. Let’s avoid that topic if I wish to stay in my happy place!

So – what could it be?

Well, it’s something that may sound remarkably normal and not really that exciting, but to me it’s a miracle.

A MIRACLE IN A CUP!

I have found a way to make a really delicious HOT CHOCOLATE! One that won’t make me sick as a dog or screw my face up in disgust at some horrible milk subsitute!

You see, Monkey isn’t the only lactose/ CMP intolerant person in our house. I haven’t been able to have milk/cream for years (especially if it’s heated up) as it sends me running to the loo to be violently sick within mere minutes of ingesting it. There has been many an occasion where I’ve had some very lovely food and then realised, all too late, that I really really shouldn’t have gone there.

It’s such a pain – especially as when I was younger, it never affected me at all. I probably shouldn’t really have cheese either, as that can affect me. But I’m such a cheese monster that I choose to ignore the bloating and painful stomach that I get, which isn’t probably the best idea.

Anyway – so – yes. Ooooh I really hate all the milk substitutes that I’ve tried over the years. They are, to my mind, pretty disgusting. I really can’t stand them so I just stopped having anything vaguely milky. But today I came across some coconut drinking milk and cream that has pretty much changed my life.

I know that sounds dramatic, but it really has!

I’ve had a creamy, milky smoothie today, which was some of the coconut milk whizzed up with a handful of berries. It was delicious and really refreshing!

And, just now, I’ve had a lovely mug of hot chocolate, which was yummy! I used the coconut milk, plus some coconut cream and combined them with some melted, dairy-free dark chocolate (some dark chocolate isn’t dairy free, so you do have to be careful). It was delicious and I’m one very happy lady!

I’m now sat, surrounded by cookery books, looking at creamy recipes that I can adjust. I use coconut milk all the time in my cookery, but this milk tastes just that little bit better than the stuff that I usually buy and now I’m quite excited at what I could make with it!

Dairy free cooking

Now – in no way, shape or form am I a brilliant cook. I’m really not! I can get by, I like making things from scratch but I’m not that marvellous – not in comparison to some of my friends who whip up the most astounding meals with apparent ease and flair.

I made a decision, when Monkey was born, that I’d try and ensure that he got fresh, decent food at all times. I was never, NEVER going to open up a packet, I was going to do everything perfectly and I was going to be Supermum. Ok, so I’ve used a few pouches here and there (when we’ve been away from home or travelling or out and about), but I’m pretty pleased that I’ve stuck mostly to my guns.

Saying that, I haven’t really had that much of a choice. As Monkey is lactose intolerant, I’ve found that so many pre-prepared baby foods have milk powder/ whey powder/ just plain normal milk added to them, that it’s much safer for me to make my own food anyway.
Plum baby porridges have been my lifesavers as they’re dairy free and Monkey absolutely loves them, which makes life a little easier in the morning!

So, what I thought I’d do is share on here, gradually, over time, some of the things that I’ve made for Monkey. They’re not going to be gourmet meals, but they might come in handy for some other mum of a lactose and cow’s milk protein (CMP) intolerant baby who’s in the position that I was in a few months ago. I hope so. If not, then it’s going to be an excellent way for me to record things for posterity. Hopefully if we have another baby, that little mite won’t have the same allergies and intolerances as Monkey, but at least I’ll be a little more prepared.

Tonight I made a really nice sauce that you could add to any meat (we used chicken).

I cooked some red lentils according to the packet instructions.
Whilst they were boiling, I chopped up one onion and one green pepper and fried them in a teeny weeny bit of vegetable oil, along with some mixed herbs.
Then, after draining the lentils, I put all the ingredients into a pan, added some tomatoes and simmered it all until the tomatoes had become a lovely, squelchy mess.
I then added some coconut cream.

That’s it! Monkey had it with cooked chicken and couscous, and he wolfed it down!

I’ve portioned it off into large cubes and frozen it, so that I have it on hand at any time. I reckon it’d probably go quite well with pasta too so I’m really quite pleased with the results!

So, yes, as I find things that work and that Monkey likes, I’ll add them on here. Please feel free to chip in and add your own – I’d love to expand my repertoire of dairy-free ideas!!!

Mealtimes with Monkey!

Since our little Monkey has been eating solids, I’ve made a discovery that actually quite surprised me. I know this is going to sound rather silly, but I really didn’t realise just how much more food I’d be buying and how much my food bill would go up by!

I think the main reason that our food bill has escalated is that we’re buying an awful lot more fresh fruit – and, my goodness, they’ve really gone and got expensive recently! My Monkey can devour a banana in mere seconds, so we’re getting through a fair few.

Even though he’s eating mostly a toned down version of our meals, it’s still incredible how much it all adds up. I obviously was rather naive – but I do think that food bills have increased so much anyway over the past few months.

What has been rather interesting is just how much he loves food with lots of flavour. I know, I know – that sounds rather silly – but bear with me. If you think about those, ahem, lovely jars of food that they sell in the shops that are pretty much ALL THE SAME COLOUR (how come that happens?), they really are rather boring and bland. The notion is that babies like plainer foods and progress onto more complex flavours as they grow.

I’ve really not found that to be the case at all. Perhaps it’s because Monkey is breastfed and, therefore, gets different flavours coming through in my milk. He absolutely loves anything that has garlic in it, adores spices and relishes flavour. If I give him the more bland options, he generally (apart from his porridge in the morning) turns up his nose at them.

So, I’ve started experimenting more and more. He will polish off a baby-version Thai green curry quite quickly and really loves one of our favourite meals, Chicken Zorba (chicken marinated in various herbs with pitta). It’s so nice to watch him polish off homemade meals with gusto and, I have to admit, I get a kick out of the fact that I made it – rather than just grabbing a pouch/jar.

Don’t get me wrong – I use pouches whenever we’re out and about, if I can’t be bothered to pack up a full lunch/tea from home. They’re great and really come in useful, but oh my goodness – they’re expensive. You’d have to be loaded to just feed your baby using those and they’ll be missing out on so much goodness that you get from a home-cooked meal.

Plus, I think it’s good that Monkey has to wait for his tea. There’s not often an instant meal out of a packet, unless I’ve really just had one of those days or am feeling rather ill! He sits in his highchair and watches me – we sing, we laugh and we talk (kind of!) but it’s a great interaction time and one that will, hopefully, carry through to when he’s older. That could then become the time where we talk about our days/ get some homework done.

Anyway – I’m planning on putting up some recipe ideas on here – things that I’ve made that he seems to enjoy. With having a lactose and cow’s milk protein intolerant baby, it’s been far easier to make my own things as I know precisely what’s gone into them! Hopefully they may be of some use to someone, but equally hopefully – some of you lovely people may put up your own ideas so that I don’t end up cooking the same things in a lovely, repetitive fashion!

Speaking of which – it’s teatime…. Ooooh – what are we having tonight? Eggy bread with banana sugar-free muffins and fruit salad. YUM!!!

Easy does it! Brother Max review.

When you have a little one, there are certain items that just – make sense. I’ve bought a whole range of things over the past 8 months or so (and some before he was born) that, quite frankly, have been a complete and utter waste of money. He HATED being swaddled after a while, wasn’t particularly impressed with one range of bottles that we tried out and really made one hell of a fuss (in an ezcema-related way) to various baby products.

So when it came to weaning, I was a little hesitant about buying things as I didn’t want to get stuff that just didn’t work for him or me. I came across the Brother Max Easy-Hold bowls pretty early on and I’m just so glad I got them, as they’re brilliant. I find them incredibly easy to hold, they have a little dent in them that makes loading up a spoon a doddle (no chasing around food in these babies!) and they have a suction cup that actually works! Monkey finds it almost impossible to get this one off and wave it around, victoriously, over his head – unlike some of the others that we have.

They also have lots of items in the range that make the bowls work in different ways. I got hold of their travel system, which has a little dividing section that sits inside the main bowl and a lid that holds two spoons. Simple but ingenious and has been pretty much everywhere with us. It doesn’t leak, has been thrown around all over the place and is utterly brilliant.

So – when I saw that Brother Max were launching some new products I kind of, um, pestered them in a very nice I LOVE YOUR STUFF kind of way to let me do a review of them! And those lovely people let me!

They sent me over one of their new Easy-Hold 2-in-1 snack pot bowls. This is such a sensible addition to their range and I’m really impressed with it. Quite simply, it’s an Easy-Hold bowl with a special, flexible, spill-proof lid that enables you to put snack items inside and stops them falling out all over the place when your little cutie waves the bowl around, or throws it across the floor in a little rage.

It works with the other items in the Easy-Hold range so you can take off the lid and use it as a bowl, put in the insert from the travel set or plonk it down onto the suction cup, which is great if you already have some of the Brother Max things!

Monkey is a little young at the moment for using this on his own and I’ve found that it’s just very handy for me as I can carry snacks around for him and I’m not faffing around with getting lids off things (and then having to put them back on again) whenever he wants something to eat. I’ve even clipped it onto the pram with a climbing caribiner clip, which has worked really well! I let Monkey have a play with it and it got generally waved around all over the place, babbled at, chewed and then thrown across the kitchen floor. Good news is that none of the contents spilled out, so it does it’s job perfectly! In time he’ll get the idea that you can put your hand inside it, but that kind of freaked him out when I tried to show him so I think that will be a wondrous discovery that he makes one day. Then I’m sure he’ll show me on countless occasions just how easy it is to use!

Daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this review and gave my time freely to do so. An Easy-Hold 2-in-1 snack pot was sent to me for review but all thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.

Clever Kit! The Yoomi Bottle and Warmer Review

As I’m now working part time, which is involving a lot of weekday mornings, we have been looking around for solutions for feeding Monkey in the night, so that I can get a little bit more sleep in preparation for the working day.

As he’s a mainly breastfed baby (we have some prescription, lactose-free formula but that tends to be used in emergencies and in cooking), having Monkey feeding the countless times throughout the night that he sometimes still does is not really practical, so we started to look at bottles.

The only problem is that they take just so long to heat up, if you have to muck around with the kettle. By that stage, what might have been a bit of a whimper or a half cry, where he would usually pull himself across and land back on a boob, or be picked up from his cot and settled down to a feed, has often escalated into a full-on war cry of high pitched proportions that really isn’t good for creating a calm, sleepy environment for anyone and makes settling him back down a much more tricky operation.

So, when I came across the yoomi bottle, I was intrigued. http://www.yoomi.com I really wanted to have a play with one and the nice folk who make them sent me one over so I could do just that! The bottle is a rechargeable, self warming and BPA free bottle – it has a special warmer that slots in under the teat and heats the milk up within 60 seconds.

To use the heating element, you have to either put it in an electric steam steriliser for 25 continuous minutes (with four times the amount of water that the steriliser normally needs) or put it on it’s side in a pan of continuously boiling water for 25 mins. It’s got the same stuff in it that hand gel warmers have, so it needs to be recharged between uses. Once it’s charged up, you have to leave it for 75 minutes to rest and cool down, but it remains charged until you need to use it. If you use it before it is fully rested, you can permanently damage it. Each warmer is good for 100 feeds.

Ok – so I have to be honest – when I first read all that, it seemed like a little bit of a faff but I wanted to keep an open mind and went for it. We boiled up the water and charged up the heater. Whilst it’s a little time-consuming, it’s not really a hassle if you’re doing other things in the kitchen. I charged mine up one lunchtime when I was batch-cooking and feeding Monkey. Didn’t really take any extra time out of my day and I left it cooling whilst we went off to play and then have a little nap!

We got the bottle ready for a feed in the afternoon, thinking that this would be a good introduction to it as it’s quite a different shape from the ones that he’s been used recently (Dr Brown ones – the teat isn’t as wide). The bottle itself is nice and wide, with a breast-type anti-colic teat (which I really like as Monkey had dreadful colic when he was little). Without the warmer, it’s a very light bottle but I have to be honest and say that the warmer does add a significant amount of weight to it.

However, this weight is actually completely well worth it when you get to use the bottle and warmer together. I put breast milk from the fridge in the bottle and then went to use it. I pressed the orange button on the bottle warmer and followed the instructions carefully. The warmer rattles when it’s not ready to use and stops rattling when its ready and you give it a little shake. This takes about 30 seconds. You hold the bottle so that the teat is full of milk and you’re ready to go!

It worked remarkably well and I was very impressed. Monkey is really fussy about new bottles and cups but didn’t seem at all phased by this new one and the milk was at the right temperature for him. What a fab invention!

The only downside to the yoomi bottle is that once you’ve used the warmer once, then it has to be recharged (which involves a bit of time again). However, the bottle can be used without the warmer and you can buy warmers individually which would make the system work well as you could then always have a charged one at the ready.

As a bottle that we can use at night to give him a quickly warmed feed, it’s brilliant and does the job really well! The prices of a yoomi do look a little steep when you first see them, but they’re actually not bad once you take into account what you get with the feeding systems that they have on offer. For the ease and portability that you get with them, I think they’re a good item to have at home.

As I don’t really use bottles much, the yoomi does provide me with a useful bit of kit that will hopefully help Mr Clothbum to quickly give Monkey a calm and correctly-heated feed at night and allow me to get a little bit more sleep before I have to do the next feed. We will probably invest in a second heater and bottle just in case we need two but it will fill in that gap nicely before Monkey joins us in bed for a bit of co-sleeping and open-bar snacking in the early hours of the morning!

Daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this review and gave my time freely to do so. A yoomi bottle http://www.yoomi.com was sent to me for review but all thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.

Mmmmmm… Chocolate!

I’m going to make a confession now – I’m not a religious person. My baby isn’t going to be christened and I don’t plan on taking him to church, although he may choose to do these things in later life (which is absolutely fine by me). But, at this time of the year I do celebrate…

Well, I celebrate chocolate… That’s very wrong of me, I suppose, but there’s lots of us – all over the world, that worship the lovely scrumminess that is chocolate. But, I have a rather large problem with chocolate and that’s a problem that my mischievious little Monkey might have to deal with as he gets older as well.

We’re both lactose intolerant. I developed it as I got older and Monkey was born with it. Hopefully he’ll grow out of it, but for now we have to be very very careful with his diet. He’s mainly breastfed, which helps us to avoid lactose in formula milk. However, we have had to use some formula when my milk supply is low (I have lots of problems which I’ve written about before http://daisytheclothbummum.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/breastfeeding-my-journey-so-far-and-looking-to-the-future/ ) and that’s had to be a special prescription lactose-free milk.

So, when I was contacted with the possibility of reviewing some Easter Eggs from Holland and Barrett that both Monkey (when he’s older) and I could enjoy without any problems, I jumped at the chance. I do eat some normal chocolate, but it’s a calculated risk that I take and it affects my stomach after I’ve had it. The thing is – sometimes it’s just worth it, but I know that I’d be better off avoiding it. The difficulty is that when you grow into something like lactose intolerance, you’ve already had tastes of all the normal food that you now (quite cruelly) aren’t meant to have anymore. Like cheese. God I love cheese, but I do pay the price for eating it!

Now, the problem when you get foods that are free from lots of allergenic ingredients is that they often don’t taste very good. I remember when I tried Carob bars, thinking that they’d be a good alternative to chocolate. They weren’t. I hated them – the texture of them actually made me feel a little sick. I’d also tried chocolate for diabetics (my grandad ate it) and that really didn’t taste very good at all.

So, when I got a big box with three Easter Eggs in it that you can get in Holland and Barrett stores http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/ (lucky me!), I was actually a little cautious in my excitement. They looked just like normal eggs and I didn’t want to be disappointed by them. I wanted, no – to be honest – I needed them to taste like proper chocolate as then I’d have a great alternative that would solve a lot of my problems. Without going into too much detail, eating chocolate tends to make my stomach go a little nuts but I take the risk as I just can’t face giving it up. But, I know that I’m probably going to have to as Monkey gets a little older as I’ll have to set a good example for him, if he doesn’t grow out of his lactose intolerance.

I got sent the following:

A Dark Chocolate Easter Egg (made from 60% cocoa solids) that’s dairy free, wheat free, gluten free, egg free and suitable for vegans/vegetarians.

A Sugar Free Milk Chocolate Easter Egg that’s suitable for people that follow a sugar free diet, reduced net carbs or low glycemic index diet

A Children’s Dairy Free White Chocolate Egg that is dairy, gluten, wheat and egg free and also ok for vegans and vegetarians to eat.

I sat down and very carefully, methodically, had a taste of each one. You might call it breaking open the eggs, thoroughly enjoying smashing them and guzzling chocolate – but I see it as a more refined moment in my life! I have to say that I was very impressed with them. They actually tasted of chocolate! I couldn’t eat too much of the milk chocolate one as that does contain some milk powder, but you couldn’t tell that it was sugar free at all. My grandad would have loved it!

Being very honest, I’m not a big fan of white chocolate as I do find it a little sickly, but the children’s egg tasted very good. It wasn’t at all obvious that it was a ‘different’ kind of egg and I like the fact that it also comes with some little white chocolate buttons. For a child who’s unable to eat anything else remotely linked to chocolate, Easter must be a pretty miserable affair – so it’s great to see products like this on the High Street that will make them feel more included. I know that if Monkey carries on with his intolerance that I won’t hesitate to buy one of these eggs.

However, the egg that had to be cracking for me (I know… I’m sorry…dreadful pun time again) was the dark chocolate one. This one, on paper, ticked all my boxes, as it’s dairy free. I love dark chocolate. I could sit and eat it forever! So, I took my time over this one – really letting the chocolate melt in my mouth to get the flavour, expecting it to not live up to my obvious chocolate connoisseur standards. It was absolutely delicious! I’m actually slightly embarrassed to tell you that I scoffed the whole thing in two evenings. Whoops! It really was lovely and I think I’ll be getting Mr Clothbum to buy me one for Easter.

So, gone are the days where if you had an allergy, you were subjected to a rubbish diet – or one where you’d suffer for the sake of a little treat. These eggs are brilliant (in my humble opinion) as they really do taste like chocolate and fill that egg-shaped hole in a lot of people’s Easter weekends beautifully!

I was sent the eggs to taste and review for free, but was not given any payment to do so. All words, thoughts and opinions are my own (apart from the information about what dietary requirements the eggs are for)