All Natural "Dump Cake" ~ Goat!

:
What's Cookin'?

We had a dump cake at my mom's house that she had made for her Canasta group.  Oldest dd thought it was a cool idea and wanted to try it with real ingredients.  The 4th of July, the celebration of our nation's independence, seemed like a wonderful reason :).  Here's a comparison of the ingredients:

Original Recipe:  Boxed cake mix (long list of ingredients below); 32 oz of frozen fruit; 1 can of DIET lime/lemon soda (like a DIET sprite or 7-up - don't even get me started with the diet part of it nor phosphoric acid nor benzoate)(long list of ingredients below).

Our Recipe:  Dry ingredients from a simple white cake recipe (link follows)(flour, rapadura sugar, real butter, baking powder, vanilla bean seeds), frozen blueberries (we only had about 10 oz), 3/4 can all-natural Hansen's root beer (real cane sugar, no colors nor artificial flavors)(I would use another flavor like key lime twist next time, personally).

These are the ingredients NOT included in our real food creation:

Flavoring Natural, Citric Acid, Acesulfame Potassium,Calcium Disodium EDTA, Potassium Benzoate,Potassium Citrate, Aspartame, Water Carbonated (from soda); 


SUGAR (it doesn't say what kind so it could be GMO beet sugar), PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, WHEAT STARCH, SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, DICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, PROPYLENE GLYCOL MONOESTERS, DEXTROSE, CORN STARCH,  CELLULOSE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, XANTHAN GUM, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CELLULOSE GUM, POLYSORBATE 60, NONFAT MILK, SOY LECITHIN, TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID (from cake mix)(all caps at mix website).


WOW!


This is the recipe we used to come up with our own "boxed" cake ingredients (we used 1/2 the amount of sugar and used rapadura).  We only used the flour, rapadura sugar, real butter, baking powder, vanilla bean seeds (our vanilla isn't really ready yet so we just scraped out some seeds) and did not include the eggs nor the milk:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-white-cake/

All Natural Dump Cake:

Ingredients:

2 C frozen fruit of your choice
Dry ingredients from white cake recipe
3/4 can of natural soda (more if you think you need it)

Directions:

Spread the frozen fruit on the bottom of a large baking pan (9x13).  Sprinkle the dry cake recipe all over it.  Gently drizzle the soda over the top, covering as much area as possible (there will be some dry spots but that's okay).  Bake 30 minutes, covered, at 350F.  Uncover and bake another 15 minutes or until lightly brown on top and a cake tester comes out clean.

Results?  Awesome!  Good job, S!



What's Schoolin' and 4-Hin'?

Well, we did it.  Oldest dd is getting a goat.  She is very excited and we're learning all we can in a short amount of time.  This site was recommended (thanks, D!) and it is full of great information.  I was teetering on the edge of the cliff and pressed click to fall into the abyss of obsession and I want to read every article and every bit of advice on this site!  It also happens to be the site where I got some cheese recipes that I tried a while back.

http://www.fiascofarm.com

We have a nice stack of books checked out from the library - more on those later if any are particularly helpful.

Here is a book that is highly recommended (thanks K and K!) even though it is really expensive by my standards.  It's in my wishlist cart - since this is a short-term project lasting until early Spring at the latest I'm hesitant to get it.  However, *I* would like to have more permanent goats which would make the investment worth it (Natural Goat Care ).



Goat Pens/Fence Ideas:

This would be perfect for our needs right now.  We have lots of coyotes so we'll need to lock up the little guy at night:
http://shirleyfyfe.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8346a323153ef0120a53e2932970c-pi

Some more:
http://www.themodernhomestead.com/index.php/36-livestock/goats/63-six-2x4s-and-some-old-roofing-goat-shed

http://www.hsgateinc.com/goat_products

http://www.noble.org/ag/soils/goats/

I thought this short article was really interesting:
http://www.agnet.org/library.php?func=view&id=20110802101001&type_id=7

Some good general info:
http://www.godsc.com/care-guides/goat/

http://www.organic-gardening-and-homesteading.com/how-to-raise-goats.html

Really it will just depend on what we find used or on Craig's List but I really like looking at pictures and getting ideas for what will fit our needs.

Once at the fiasco.com  site I found several other recommended books.  These caught my eye about homemade dog food.  When I was a teenager in E.S. packaged dog food simply did not exist in stores.  No Purina, Iams, or anything else.  Our dog was fed the lowest grade rice mixed with the lowest grade cooked ground meat.  With that and selected table scraps she was very healthy.  When we are out of dog food and cannot get any that is what I feed our dog in a pinch.  She loves it.

One dog has a corn allergy so we mainly give her rice and lamb from Diamond that we can get at feed stores. I noticed that they also have puppy food - I need to look for that at the feed store for our 6 month old puppy.






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