Chocolate as Medicine

I believe chocolate has medicinal powers. Well, maybe not medicinal, but it certainly does make me feel better at times. Like today, a day after a night when my daughter fought going to bed for 3 hours, and didn't fall asleep until 12:30, only to wake up earlier than normal. Coffee didn't cut it when I needed a pick-me-up. Which brings me to the subject of chocolate, a beloved food group in my family. My mother was the first person I ever knew to declare herself a choc-o-holic. I'm not quite there, but today I needed it like a drug.

What options are there for chocolate when you can't have dairy in your house? I certainly can't stock candy bars and milk chocolate chips to nibble on. For baking I use semi-sweet chocolate chips or cocoa powder. While it should be obvious that milk chocolate chips have dairy in them, semi-sweet chocolate chips should be non-dairy. However, the common brands found in most grocery stores, such as Hersheys, Nestle, and Girardelli , all have a mark indicating either manufactured with dairy or cross contaminated with dairy. By mark, I refer to the Kosher symbols identifying them as Dairy (e.g. OU-D). That means I can't use those brands. I buy a few different Kosher brands, such as Liebers or Mishpacha. They are more reasonably priced then the ones marketed for being "allergy-safe", and have a mark indicating they are non-dairy.

I've been running low on chocolate chips, and haven't had the opportunity to get to a store that carries them (none within a 30 minute drive of my house). That leads me to my quick fix...I made fudge. The easiest recipe on earth, I use this one: Microwave Fudge. Its on About.com's website, although Cooks.com has a similar one. The great thing about it (besides being super easy and fast), is it calls for cocoa powder. No chocolate chips needed. Only five ingredients. For my allergy-friendly version, I use: cocoa powder, powder sugar, non-dairy margarine, vanilla, and Rich's non-dairy creamer. When its freshly made, it can be used as a thick fudge sauce. Otherwise, chill it and cut it into squares ...or be really decadent and eat it with a spoon!