Coconut Milk and Cream

     As a kid, I vaguely remember cracking open coconuts in our garage and my mom toasting the meat. So, one random day at Walmart, I decided to buy a coconut. I don't know what I was thinking because processing a coconut is actually a lot of work and I had no idea what I was doing so I just let it sit there for a while until one day I had some extra time so I decided to dive in. You can also make coconut milk with shredded coconut from the store but that could have some additives and taste a little different. 

    I started by cracking open my coconut. First, I used a hammer and screwdriver to poke holes in the soft spots in the coconut. I then drained all of the water out. Once all of the water was gone, I wrapped the coconut in a dishtowel to minimize the mess and whacked my coconut with a hammer until it was cracked enough to pull apart or totally broken. 

    The other way you can do this is after all of the water is drained you can clamp your coconut with a shop clamp and take a hand saw to it. This way the shell is not damaged and with a little sanding and food safe linseed oil, it makes a super cute bowl! You can also use coconut shells for candles, mini pots, wind chimes, bird feeders, and more!

    Once my coconut is broken apart, I use my "whatever" knife and spoon (this is my knife and spoon that I use when they will potentially break) to remove all of the meat. There are two layers of shell and oftentimes one of the layers will stick to the meat. The way to remove this is to use a vegetable peeler and peel off all of the brown. 

   When all of the brown is removed from the meat I stick it in a blender. One coconut will usually have about 2 cups worth of meat. For each cup of coconut meat you have, you should use 2 cups of water. The first time you blend everything together, only use half of your total water and blend it for a few minutes until the coconut is very finely ground and the water is white. Then, pour it into a muslin cloth, cheesecloth, or nut bag and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. 

    Next, I put the coconut pulp back into my blender along with the rest of my water and blended it again until the water turned white. This only took a few minutes. I then poured everything back through my cloth and squeezed out all the liquid possible. Then that's it! I keep my coconut milk in a mason jar in the refrigerator for up to a few weeks. After a few hours in the fridge, the cream will separate with the water. You can either skim this off the top and use the water and cream separately, or you can just shake it up and use it like normal coconut milk.

    You can use your fresh coconut milk in drinks, curry, coconut rice, overnight oats, and more! You can also use the leftover pulp in things like energy bites, almond joy, or my favorite, ALMOND JOYGRANOLA.

    What did you think of this recipe? Questions? Comments? Concerns? Use the comment section below!