Coconut and garlic escapades

My freezers and I are performing our annual summertime dance. I pack and rearrange, cajole and plead for just one more cubic inch of space in which to pack the season's bounty.

 

I planted some garlic cloves of previously unknown species last fall (thank you, Lori) and they ripened up nicely a few weeks ago. Turns out it is elephant garlic, not a true garlic and has a milder flavor than the real thing.

 

I am a garlic-growing novice. Indeed, I came late to an appreciation of the pungent bulb, and those who know me well are amazed when I use phrases like "My kitchen is full of the aroma of roasting garlic". This, coming from the girl who has been known to ban her husband from her side of the bed when he indulged in pizza at lunchtime.

 

I think I allowed the garlic to sit too long, either in or out of the ground, because the bulbs were not tidily encased in white parchment like all the good blogs display. The cloves had broken out of the dried skin and were separated and some had even taken on a tinge of green.

 

No matter. I attacked them with gusto, having decided to roast and freeze the lot of them and be done with it.

 

 

So I cut off the rooted ends and painstakingly peeled all of the cloves. 

 

  

If they had been all tidy, I could have merely cut off the root end and tips and roasted them without peeling, but there you go.

It didn't really take very long, and I had a slow day, so didn't mind the extra work. 

They do look rather gorgeous, all shiny and curvaceous, don't they?

 

Forty-five minutes later, after covering the pan with foil and roasting at 350 degrees, here it is.

It looks a bit anaemic, so next time I do this I might remove the foil for the last 15 minutes.

 

 

I mashed that garlic up and froze it in ice-cube trays, and that should do me for the next year.

Although, I am using it more often, so maybe not.

As it is, there were lots of little bulbs on the outside of the bulbs that I will replant. Next year, these will be single cloves, which will grow into the full bulb in the second year.

Delayed gratification is my friend.

 

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Several vendors donate their less-than-perfect produce to the senior centre in our town. I make it a habit to pop in to see what's new every time I am in that part of town. It is free to anyone who wants it, and at the height of the growing season a lot of the produce is fed to animals or thrown away, because it spoils before it is claimed.

So, my frugal self feels obligated to use whatever I can.

 

Last week, there was a box of young coconuts that had a smidgen of mould on the stem end.

I took four of them and headed home to do some research on processing them, little knowing what lay ahead of me.

If you want to know the steps involved in attacking a coconut, there are plenty of links on the internet. Let's just say, I found a few tricks that worked and some that didn't.

 

First, I scrubbed the ends so that nothing would be contaminated by mould spores. It was only on the surface, so felt okay about using them.

Next, I drained the water, which netted me about two pints of coconut water.

Pretty awesome.

That was the easy bit, involving hammering two holes in the stem end and then making a mess as the water dribbles out into a jar.

 

According to several sets of instructions, if you put the coconut in the oven or freezer for 15 to 30 minutes, the meat should separate easily from the shell. I tried the oven, as I was roasting garlic at the time.

I would say that this was a bust, because I had to spend about five minutes per coconut half gradually prying out the meat, which was hard on my hands. There is a tool you can buy, which would be worth the money if I ever decide to do this again. 

 

Then, you crack the coconut in half, which involves a heavy meat cleaver and nerves of steel.

Really, it does.

This step went quite smoothly, compared to what was to come.

The first coconut didn't get baked, and I had to pry the meat out in small chunks, which was a painstaking and painful effort.



 

The ones I baked were better, but, as mentioned, still took a ridiculous amount of effort.

 

Next, pare off the brown skin if you want a nice, white, coconut pulp, which I did.

This part was quite easy.

 



 

Chunk it up, put it in a powerful blender and cover with water.

I used the coconut water instead of tap water on the first batch. It was a bit of a waste of coconut water, because the coconut pulp actually absorbed a lot of it. 

Then blend the heck out of that baby, until there are no chunky bits left.

 

Drain well to separate the pulp from the milk and you have some nice coconut to use in baking (on the right) and some coconut milk (left) to use in drinks and smoothies.

Yum. 

 

Four coconuts yielded about two pints of pure coconut water, half-a-gallon of coconut milk, about eight cups of coconut pulp (I used some in a cake already and it was absolutely to-die-for), and half-a-cup of coconut oil, which you can see coating the sides of the blender jar.

 

 

And then I went outside and hammered the coconut shells into little pieces and put them in the compost bin.

Sometimes, my neighbours think I am a crackpot.

True story.

And, just in case you are crazy enough to try this feat of endurance yourself, here is the cake recipe, which I and several family members and neighbours can highly recommend.
There's no photo, because it was inhaled too quickly, but here's the link to the original.

Hawaiian Wedding Cake

1 20 oz can of crushed pineapple, undrained
1 1/2 c sugar (original calls for 2 c)
2 c flour (I used Ultragrain, my new discovery at Grocery Outlet)
2 tsp B. Soda
2 eggs
I c unsweetened coconut
1 c chopped nuts (I used pecans and would use less nuts next time)

Mix all together, bake in a greased 9x13 pan for 40 to 45 minutes at 350.

Frosting
 

1/4 c butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c unsweetened coconut

Soften butter and cream cheese, beat together all ingredients till creamy.
spread over cooled cake.

DO NOT MAKE THIS CAKE WITHOUT THE FROSTING.

That is all.