coconut milk - any good? whaddaya do with it?

BFwillie_g

Barefooters
May 17, 2010
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Kulmbach, Germany
Hey there!

I bought a can of coconut milk to try as a basis for food on the go. It's nice and thick and fatty, and tastes like heaven. So, I could get used to the stuff and I'm going to experiment and see what happens. But I figured I'd ask if anyone here has experience with the stuff, and I'd also appreciate recipe ideas (that don't involve Rum).

Tia :)
 
Hi Anne - I really meant drinks for running, stuff to mix with the coconut milk that might add to it in some way, either to make it more interesting or more effective ... I mixed it with some mulit-fruit juice earlier, was delicious!

Also been reading up on coconut oil (at Amazon.de) and am gonna buy a liter to try out, for cooking and maybe as skin care (ok, skin care isn't high on my list but I can see things getting creative :) )
 
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My Son has autism and as there have been theories proposed that stomach biology at least has an impact on the symptoms (if not a cause), we have have him on a Gluten free/dairy free diet for 2+ years and coconut milk is a mainstay drink and ingredient and thankfully coconut milk is more and more easy to obtain lately (rice milk and almond milk were originally easier to get but nowhere near as good). I was a skeptic but the diet has helped him a lot in terms of mental clarity and bloated belly.

I drink it often (except not in my coffee as some sort of strange breakdown happens so sticking with skim milk for that) and my wife uses it in many recipes interchangeably with milk (always buy original/sweetened vs unsweetened vs vanilla/other) and it really replaces milk quite well.

If you haven't tried unflavored coconut water (or the vita coco with the vitamin C+ added), you may want to try that too. Very few ingredients/processing involved. I was on vac in Hawaii and between running/heat/jetlag I got really bad thigh cramps and the gatoraide just wasn't helping but started drinking an obnoxious amount of coconut water and it worked so well, I've been using those trendy boxed ones both during/post run ever since and love it (40/45 miles a week, 25% barefoot, rest in fivefingers)
 
I want to point out that I am actually talking (writing) about coconut milk (the fatty, creamy stuff, not expensive, available everywhere afaik) not coconut water, gthe trendy "sports drink" ... and now I gotta get offline ... cya's and thanks! :)
 
I've been drinking unsweetened almond milk for maybe 6 months and like it. Though coconut milk sounds delish. Nowadays regular milk tastes like liquid ice cream, it's so sweet.
 
Ok ... just tried an experiment. I've got a little bronchial thing going, kept me up last night caughing. So I made a smoothie to try and combat it:

coconut milk, multi-fruit juice, handful of grapes, handful of nettles and "cat's paw" from the yard, and a good tablespoon of dried chillis - made about 700ml total and I just drank half of it and put the other half in the fridge.

Tasted ... well.... yeah... kind of spicy/weedy/coconutty ... waiting to see how my internals react to it now. Wish me luck!
 
You might try to add some fresh grated ginger... The taste of that root combines wonderfull with coconut milk, and it has antispasmodic properties that might help when you're coughing...
(Although the primary medical indication of ginger is nausea and other stomac upsets, but I like the taste so much that I'm using it just for it's taste... It's warming too, so can be usefull in cold weather...)
 
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You might try to add some fresh grated ginger...

Ah man, Anne, I forgot about ginger! I haave a whole fresh root sitting there on the shelf and just didn't think about it, geesh. I usually toss ginger into pretty much everything ... will do next time, though, thanks for the head's up :)

Btw, the brew stayed where it's supposed to stay, and hasn't caused any uncomfortable side-effects. I think it's a winner :)
 
I just tried coconut milk for the first time a couple weeks ago. It is quite pricey here. I've been using it in my granola cereal for breakfast, goes awesome with that. I've tried almond milk too. I'll have to try some smoothie recipies to be able to drink it, by themselves it tastes kind of wierd to me. I'm too used to drinking milk, but I'm trying to see if eliminating milk does anything for me.

I also purchased some coconut oil, I hear olive oil and coconut oil are the best two oils for cooking. The coconut oil is a semi-solid though like crisco. Would be good for greasing baking pans and such. I've really only used it for sauteing so far.
 
I also purchased some coconut oil, I hear olive oil and coconut oil are the best two oils for cooking.

We use lot's of olive oil, but "experts" say you shouldn't use it for frying because it breaks down and releases cancer-causing thingies. Also, when I was in the States in Nov, I got the impression that decent olive oil was very expensive and the affordable olive oil was pretty low quality.

Coconut milk here is like €1,80 for a 400ml can in the Asian section of larger supermarkets. my wife brought home a can or organic that cost €2,00 but it was horrible, think it may have been bad because I had some serious "distress" later in the day :(

Coconut oil, I'd have to either get at the organic supermarket or order online - doesn't seem prohibitively expensive, either. I want a deep-fryer now (falafel, yum! :) )
 
Coconut milk here is like €1,80 for a 400ml can in the Asian section of larger supermarkets. my wife brought home a can or organic that cost €2,00 but it was horrible, think it may have been bad because I had some serious "distress" later in the day :(

Most coconut milk is just that, coconutmilk (and some anti-oxydant like citric acid), but once I bought a can that really tasted horrible (from a 'regular' supermarket), and it turned out to be diluted, and with added sugar and emulsifier etc.
 
Most coconut milk is just that, coconutmilk (and some anti-oxydant like citric acid), but once I bought a can that really tasted horrible (from a 'regular' supermarket), and it turned out to be diluted, and with added sugar and emulsifier etc.

The organic (Alnatura brand) had only coconut and water listed as ingredients, and it was lumpy and weird and disgusting und unuseable (sp?). All the standard brands from Thailand have some kind of "emulgator" in them that I think bonds the coconut with the liquid, makes it creamy, keeps it from separating. They all have a lot of fat, btw, kind of a disadvantage when cleaning up.

Btw, Anne, your blog is sweet, really nicely done!
 
i think coconut oil, milk, may have some laxative affects. i've only cooked with milk and drank water. fresh coconut water is best but to cut one open is not easy. at least the road side vendors in Mexico with machetes don't make it look that easy.
 
Btw, Anne, your blog is sweet, really nicely done!

Thank you... But I just noticed I have to rethink the design...
In FireFox it doesn't look so bad, but when I just gave it a look here at work, I noticed that the design is broken in IE (background is scrolling, and shouldn't do that...)