Thursday, August 8, 2013

Short lesson on coconuts...

The Philippines may be the main source of coconut for the world, but I lived in Thailand, so my experience is centered there. In fact, the site below doesn't even mention Thailand.

Sorry, no pictures. The internet, however, is full of them. What they look like isn't nearly as important as knowing what's what.

Nasty lesson learned: Coconut milk is not the water inside the coconut. The liquid inside is coconut water. Blech! At least, I didn't like it. I dislike bitter, and coconut water is bitter.

Coconut meat is the white stuff on the inside of the shell. I've seen it in chunks and didn't see the purpose since it ended up grated anyway. Finally, there is the ever popular shredded or flaked. Sometimes it's sweetened and sometimes it isn't. The difference is noticeable, at least to me.

Coconut milk is all the liquid squeezed from the coconut meat. I still don't care for it straight, but I do like it mixed half and half with my lactose free milk. I use it in the place of milk in most of my cooking and in my frozen banana and powdered breakfast drink shake. I want to try coconut milk whipped, something I've pinned on FB. :-)

Coconut oil is my new favorite wonder home use product. I use it with a touch of butter (for flavor) when I make grilled cheese sandwiches. Coconut oil has so little flavor it's negligible. It's a little more delicate than butter, so also burns easily. I wouldn't use it for frying, but then I don't fry. Really. I'm terrified of being burned. Me and irons have had too many run ins. I do use coconut oil in the place of the butter in my box cake mix enriched recipe. I've tried trading it for the butter in my chocolate chip cookies, and it didn't go well. I use it on my skin instead of lotion or moisturizer.

Cool site featuring coconuts:
http://thecoconutsite.com/

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