I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

Coconuts seem to be a staple of paleo cooking, whether it be coconut flour or coconut oil or coconut butter or desiccated coconut or coconut milk or coconut cream... See? Sometimes I think paleo people are a little too dependent on these amazing fruits.

I find it kinda funny how someone can say 'I eat what a caveman would eat' when in reality, unless you lived in the tropics and actually liked exerting large amounts of energy into preparing a single food item, you wouldn't eat coconut as much as we do today. But then again, cavemen didn't know what cakes and cookies were, and he wouldn't need to make coconut flour to make them.

We've gotten coconuts twice, once before Christmas and the other one we got this week. But as much as I love coconuts, the process of getting it from a heavy, hard ball to edibility is pretty darn hard. Let's go through those steps, shall we?

Step One: Drain the Coconut Water. I'm not quite sure how a caveman would do this neatly, but find the three dark dots on the coconut and stick a thick pin type thing in there. I used a meat thermometer, but that's because that's what I found. You may have to get creative with that one. Once you reach the hollowness, tip it upside down and let all that sweet deliciousness trickle out.


Step Two: Crack the Shell. Be a caveman and chuck your coconut at a rock or something sharp on the ground. I only needed three throws at some broken concrete to get it into six - eight pieces. Once it's broken up, pry it apart with your hands to break it up even more. Yes, that's possible! It just takes a lot of thumb work.

Step Three: Take a Breather. Pop the coconut shells in the oven for 10 - 15 mins. It helps with the next step. And it's not like a caveman wouldn't do something similar. He'd take a break while letting his coconut sit in the sun while he recollects his breath and takes a sip of that coconut water he got before.

Step Four: Separating White and Brown Part I. There's a couple of ways to do this, but basically your end product of this step is to get the coconut meat with a bit of brown, and then the rest of the shell separated. These are the two ways I do it. Dig a thin butter knife under the 'skin' (the brown bit that'll stay on the white coconut) and try to jam the coconut out like that. Or cut into the coconut as if it could just slice in half, but on an angle, and when you reach the bottom, kinda twist the knife lengthways and it just pops out. However you find a way to do it, just try to make the pieces big. The bigger the better.

Step Five: Separating White and Brown Part II. Use a peeler to peel off that brown skin stuff that's left on the white coconutty goodness. This is the easy step.

And you're doooone! Phew! If you didn't have your coconut water before, take a swig of it, nice and chilled. I think you've deserved it from all of that! If your thumbs aren't dying and you're not about to get blisters all over your hands, go crack another coconut.