Homemade coffee creamer

Someone recently asked me if I've always been concerned about nutrition. Yeah, people ask me that question a lot, but this time I happened to think about the fact that I used to love that fake coffee creamer in the store -- you know the French vanilla and all of those other flavors. And I loved it a lot, meaning that I put a lot of it in my coffee.

Now, I would not call this a "health food" or even a healthy alternative, but it is all natural. I won't be putting this in my coffee every day, but I'll probably make it a few times a year for a special treat. It's a dulce de leche coffee creamer -- or caramel.

This recipe might look familiar to some of you:

2 quarts goat milk
2 cups sugar
1/2 t. baking soda

Yes, it's the same ingredients as many cajeta recipes. Put it on the stove and start boiling gently. After four to six hours, it will look like this. You can call it creamer whenever it suits your fancy. I think it's just perfect when it's reduced slightly more than half of its original volume. In this particular case, I doubled the recipe to one gallon of milk and cooked it down to two quarts of creamer. Don't worry about getting it just right. If you don't boil it down enough, you'll just use more of it in your coffee. If you boil it down too much, then you won't need as much. If you boil it down way too much, then you'll have a great caramel sauce for dipping apples or putting on ice cream. You really can't fail with this one.