Delicious and Dairy Free

My gorgeous daughter Toots was diagnosed as dairy intolerant when she was 3 and a half (after years of me nagging the health visitor).  

At first, this was a complete nightmare, as it's fair to say that her favourite things to eat were cheese and yoghurt and she drank milk by the gallon.  We have, however, become more used to catering for her and, although our local supermarket is fairly rubbish in stocking dairy free items, it is becoming gradually better with a bit more variety. 

Please let me know if there are any recipes you'd like to see here and of course, if you're dairy free, I'd love to hear what your biggest challenges are in terms of catering.  Is it eating out, eating as a family or finding delicious treats that actually taste delicious (as good as, if not better than the real thing)?

As Toots is only 6 her biggest bug bear is that, while all the other kids seem to get lovely treats, cakes and sweets, hers are all a bit 'wholesome' and she always feels like she's missing out.  So that's why my first recipe on this page is what is most definitely a treat...

Homemade Dairy Free Nutella

Rich, decadent and wickedly delicious - you could adapt this to make it non-dairy free by using milk chocolate (thereby making it less rich) or by using dairy free milk chocolate instead.  Entirely up to your own tastes.  It's also a whole heap healthier than actual Nutella which seems to have modified palm oil and a tonne of sugar in it too!  (Not that I'm going to pretend for a minute that this is healthy - just perhaps healthier!)