Real Food Friday Feast - How to make your own coconut butter and coconut milk

I'm a huge fan of all things coconut. It's so incredibly good for you that I find every way possible to get it into my system. I use coconut oil for just about everything when cooking, I add some of it to my apple cider vinegar drink in the mornings. I eat the flakes like chips because they are just yummy and I add 2 tablespoons of coconut flakes to our morning smoothie as well. I also use coconut butter and coconut milk for cooking various things.

The problem with store bought coconut milk is that, by the time they are finished with it, it is so far removed from actual coconut milk that you might as well be drinking store bought pasteurised cow's milk. It's full of thickeners and preservatives and the cans are invariably lined with BPA. It's more carcinogenic than it is good for you. I like to add coconut milk to my soups and curries so having it on hand is, well, handy! Having NUTRITIOUS coconut milk on hand is even handier because, why go to all the trouble of making an organic, free-range, chemical free, nutritious meal, if you are going to go ahead and add a can of chemical-laden coconut milk?

The good news is that it's REALLY easy to make your own. All you need is a good blender and a bag of organic dehydrated coconut (which you can buy at most health stores)

Let's start with coconut butter because, once you have coconut butter, you will be able to make your coconut milk.

COCONUT BUTTER

6 cups dehydrated organic coconut flakes (yup, that's all you need! The amount is optional but it makes it easier if you use more rather than less)

NB: This won't work with desiccated, sweetened, reduced fat or fresh coconut

METHOD

• Place coconut into a blender and blend on high power.
• The flakes will eventually move up the sides of the blender and you will need to use a spatula to push them down again.
• Keep blending... and blending... aaaaaand blending!
• It may take about 10 minutes, some patience and a lot of scraping the sides of your blender down but eventually your coconut flakes will start to turn to cream.
• Stop blending when all of the flakes are gone and the coconut is liquid. (you may need to switch off the blender every minute or so to prevent burning out the motor)
• Place in a container to cool and harden

Voila! You have made coconut butter. Pretty easy huh? You should end up with between 2-3 cups of butter from this recipe. 

If you have a hand blender, I find that works even better, as long as you use the container it comes with because it usually fits the blender part perfectly so it prevents the coconut from escaping up the sides.

Depending on the climate, your coconut butter will either be rock hard or quite runny. Coconut tends to harden in lower temperatures and turn liquid in higher temperatures. I keep mine in the fridge and then just take it out a few hours before I need it, depending on the weather.

Why would you need coconut butter? Well, vegans would definitely prefer this to normal butter, for one thing! But honestly, once you taste it, you will wonder no more! It's delicious! It makes anything you bake with it, taste heavenly. And the wonderful bonus about coconut butter is that you can now make your own coconut milk from it.

Here's how:

• Fill a mug with boiling water
• Add a teaspoon of coconut butter
• Stir until dissolved
• Hey presto! You now have coconut milk!

Now don't be surprised at the consistency of your coconut milk. It's not thick and gooey like the canned stuff. But that's because it's THE REAL McCOY and it doesn't contain thickeners. It's delicious and so good for you and it costs you so little. Using only 1 teaspoon of butter per cup of coconut milk means it lasts a long time. If you think about what you pay for one can of coconut milk, you are saving lots of money by making your own!

That's it! Have a super, green, organic weekend;)