The Coconut Diaries Part 1

Regular blog readers will recall that I have my own crop of coconuts in my back yard. Pictured above is one of the trees on the north side of our yard. I had no way of getting them down, except waiting for them to fall.

Well, this week they turned all brown and three of them fell. I wondered if they were still edible in the brown stage. There was only one thing to do -- fetch my machete and open them.

Compared to the green state, when they are brown, they are incredibly fibrous. Normally in the green state, I open them with a large kitchen knife. It took me about ten minutes to open one with a machete. The brown coconut inside looked promising.

I took the coconut inside and opened it using little taps from the back of a large kitchen knife around the pointed end (not the end with the three eyes). The end just pops off. I tasted the coconut water. It was delicious. It was sweeter than the coconut water in the green stage. And the coconut itself (the white copra) was creamy and delicious.

Coconut is incredibly good for you. It is healthy and full of nutrients. I shredded one entire coconut into a fruit salad. The other two, I bagged and put in the fridge.

Part two of the Coconut Diaries is coming -- probably tomorrow. It details what I did with the husks.

So far, I am pleased with my crop of coconuts, but when they all fall, I think that I will have more than a year's supply of coconut.