Goat Cheesecake

for the bottom:
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup or one stick (and a tbs) of vegetable butter
1/2 cup of organic cane sugar
1 tsp salt

microwave butter on high for 45 seconds in glass container
combine flour, sugar, salt and mix well; add butter and mix well until it just about forms a ball

if the dough does not stick to each other, add a little orange juice - but not too much! it is a crumble dough type, it should not smooth out like bread dough, otherwise it will taste sticky.

fill one 10" spring form evenly, but only the bottom, not the sides
optional: use a prepared Graham cracker crust (if you do, cut the filling recipe in half)

for the filling:
2 envelopes unflavored gelatine
1 cup organic cane sugar
1 cup boiling water
32 oz (home made) soft goat cheese / chevre
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix gelatin powder and sugar; add boiling water and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.

Beat chevre and vanilla in KitchenAid / mixer until smooth; remove mixer and by hand slowly beat in gelatin mixture.

Pour into spring form and refrigerate until firm (ca. 3 hours but preferably the next day).

optional: add a 1/2 pint of home made jam to the chevre to make a sweet cheesecake.

Crust recipe from Het Nieuwe Kookboek, page 422 (zandkoekjes)
Filling recipe adapted from Knox It's-a-Snap Cheesecake

Grams to Cups Conversion

Great resource for us European bakers!

According to the Alt.cooking FAQ

flour, Deaf Smith 130 grams/cup
flour, U.K. self-raising 110 grams/cup
flour, U.S. all-purpose 100 grams/cup
flour, buckwheat 170 grams/cup
flour, cake 90 grams/cup
flour, legume 130 grams/cup
flour, potato 170 grams/cup
flour, rice 150 grams/cup
flour, rye 90 grams/cup
flour, semolina 175 grams/cup
flour, wheat bread 100 grams/cup
flour, whole wheat 130 grams/cup

sugar, brown 200 grams/cup
sugar, castor 190 grams/cup
sugar, confectioner's 130 grams/cup
sugar, granulated 190 grams/cup
sugar, powdered 130 grams/cup

more goats...

A week after we picked up the little bottle kids, I finally found some weaned boer bucks for a good price. I immediately went to pick them up - they are bred and raised by a 14 year old! - and they are happily living in the fenced in area out back.

This week we're supposed to have our fence posts dropped off and this weekend the pounder tractor comes to put them in the ground! Couple more weekends, and they'll be happily munching on all the weeds they want, without us having to take them out in the morning and in at night - sooo nice!

Our toddler Simon enjoys walking down there and feed them corn, though right now they think he's a little alien and try to hide!

We've got goats!

The same morning Oma Winda flew back to the Netherlands, Simon and I went on a tour at Side Hill Acres Dairy Farm with our playgroup buddies Sungiva, Nellia, Willow and assorted parents. The tour was wonderful, lots of goats and lots of babies, and we all came home with lots of dairy goodies - except Simon, he came home with baby goats :-)

We had picked two at the farm and called them Adam (orange) and Jamie (black & white) but Adam never drank real well and he passed two days later. Jamie had a little dip (funny how baby goats and baby humans are similar!) but with a little nudge here and there we got into a good routine.



Jamie loves sleeping on my lap, likes to follow Simon around the house (in circles) and comes outside to hang out & play with us, though power tools are not his favorite toys... it's like having a little dog in goat fur! Except for the part of not being house trained...

He drinks (pasteurized) goat milk from our local grocery store, about 4 times a day.

Suus' Dutch American Apple Pie

for the dough:
320 g white four (.7 lbs)
200 g butter (2 sticks)
120 g cane sugar (.26 lbs)
3 g salt
little bit of orange juice

Add dry ingredients to KitchenAid. Soften butter in microwave for one minute. Mix in with dry ingredients. Use a little orange juice if needed so it will form a ball.

Use a greased 10" spring vorm. Sprinkle flour on counter and roll out dough to about 1/4"- 1/8" thick. Assemble pieces into vorm, cover bottom and sides completely, pinch edges. Save about 1/3 of dough for top lattice.

for the filling:
6-8 large apples, peeled, cored and cubed
6 tbs (vegetable) butter
3 tbs cane sugar
1 cup raisins (golden & black)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup liqour (bourbon, rum)
lemon

Melt butter over medium heat. Add sugar, salt & spices and stir till blended. Add apples & raisins and cook for 5-10 minutes. Add liqour and cook for another 10 minutes or more until liquid is reduced and thickenend (or pour off excess liquid). Squeeze lemon juice into mixture, it helps prevent browning of apples.

Add filling to pie shell. If desired, thicken excess liquid (extra cooking, or corn starch) and add to filling. Cut excess dough into strips and assemble criss-cross for lattice top. Brush lattice top with egg white.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

Dough recipe from Het Nieuwe Kookboek by H.H.F. Henderson.
Filling recipe adapted from Bourbon Apple Pie by Smith & Thruslow

Top Bar Beekeeping

Since we have about 2 acres of meadow we let go to 'the weeds' every year and only bushwhack it once late fall we get tons of flowers. Mostly golden rods and other more weed designated, but also black eyed susans, daisies, milkweed, wild strawberries and whatnot's. With all those flowers we get tons of insects (and birds, including nest hummingbirds!) and the buzzing of all those busy bees made me wonder about bee keeping.

I've asked around town for bee keepers to set up hives on the back lot without much success, apparently west hill is too far for most Ithacans. Then I found the article "Keeping Bees using the Top Bar Method" in Mother Earth Magazine (see picture). To me, it reads like building a bird house, but for bees, and only taking surplus honey when available, without interfering with hive life. No expensive setup to buy and maintain, with just enough honey for a family to cope with!

The Barefoot Beekeeper book and website has lots more information, including a free eBook on How to Build a Top Bar Hive. I'm collecting materials to do so before spring arrives, and look forward to start utilizing our weeds in a new, but very old, and yummy, way!

self closing fence gate

In the Netherlands, petting zoo's, or better translated, children's farms, have angled self closing gates to help the kids keep the animals in their pens. In these "kinder boerderijen" the parents and kids are allowed to wander in and out of the animal pens, and the kids and animals are encouraged to interact with each other. To keep the animals, especially the goats, from wandering out with the kids some bright mind came up with a self closing gate.

The gate in this picture is paired with a shuttle entry and another gate at the end entering the main pen - double the security, and especially useful at petting zoo's where there is a lot of traffic in and out (or which house escape artists).

All in all, it's just a standard gate but with the hinge post at an 15 -20 degree angle. The weight of the (wooden) gate will help it swing back shut, and also help with animals trying to shove it back open. We use a gate latch to keep it shut when were not around since we do keep goats :-)