Pineapple & Coconut Treat

Yesterday afternoon, we took some time and a bit of effort to bake up two coconuts. We then cracked them open, one of them being a bit stubborn. Then I cut up the flesh, including the brown inner shell, into small cubes.

With a bit of the coconut water, which we had drained by piercing the eyes before baking, I blended the pieces in our food processor.

Generally a blender would do the trick. I think the processor worked better than the blender, comparing this time to the previous time I tried this project. In this case, I did not have to option of using our hand blender, because our kitten had knocked it into the trash can some time past, and it was taken away before we realized the mistake. This is a theory, but seems a likely one given our kitten's propensity for jumping on that particular counter and knocking things onto the floor or into the trash below.

When the coconut was well blended, we wrung it through some cheesecloth and collected the coconut milk in a bowl. I am a huge fan of coconut milk bought in cans at the store, but this coconut milk was richer, creamier, and sweeter than the typical fare. Besides, when you buy coconut milk at a little over a dollar a can, the $1.99 for a whole coconut seems like a steal. Albeit, it comes with an hour or so of work, but I believe it is completely worth every minute.

After dinner, my brother cut up and pureed a fresh pineapple. Then he combined it with the coconut milk, and some ice that he crushed in kitchen towels with a hammer. The final ingredient: some rum.

The result was a refreshing coconut taste first & foremost, a taste we feel is all too often overly masked or subtle in Pina Coladas. Then there was the sweet acidity of the pineapple to balance the creamy coconut. Following those, there was that subtle kick of rum, the flavor we all know & love. Granted, the concoction would have been most pleasant even without this bit of rum.

What followed was a merry board game and sips that brought a bit of the tropics to a cold midwestern night.

We used two coconuts for this project, at $1.99 each. This produced about a can's worth of refreshing coconut water, a little over a can's worth of intense coconut milk, and eight cups worth of shredded coconut, some of which is needed for our next culinary adventure...

Favorite Song (on my favorite radio station during cook time): Lunasa-Punch.