CocoNUTS!

In Hawaii palm trees are so plentiful that they dominate the landscape, but these trees are more than just good looking, they're good eating too! My first mission was to master the skill of cracking open a coconut. As Irish and Rick are masters of the trade, they gave me a step by step lesson. First up you have to remove them from the tree, so Irish climbed up with the tools of the trade to carefully remove a few bushels of coconuts (as pictured). Next you must take one coconut and crack the outer green shell either with a machete or a hard rock- it's important to smash first on one side then the other till it splits and you can peel it back. Then you use the tip of the same tool to tap around the top of the inside nut until it splits and you can drink the sweet nectar.




Fact: Coconut milk is sterile! So back in the day they not only used it to clean wounds but they could even put it in an IV to rehydrate patients.

Terri and I decided to put these coconuts, along with the first pumpkin she has ever picked from her garden to good use. Terri chopped up and peeled the pumpkin, while I disassembled and shredded the coconut. Then we boiled up the coconut juice, grated coconut and pumpkin, and added some curry, salt, pepper, grated fresh ginger and cinnamon. Last but not least we pureed this goodness all up into a delicious coconut pumpkin curry soup and ate it with dinner!

Fact: Coconuts really are a superfood...you can live off of only the fruit and it's juice longer than any other single naturally occurring food item.

The last time you ordered that hearts of palm salad in a restaurant did you ever really think twice about where that crunchy delicious white morsel came from? I never really did until the other day when Terri and I were cleaning out one of the water catchment tanks and needed to chop down a palm tree that was getting in the way. She told me that we shouldn't let the palm go to waste, but instead we should harvest the "heart" of the palm! So we (mostly Terri) did some quick work of cutting open the numerous layers of the palm until the "heart" was finally revealed (like a GIANT version). Apparently the hearts of palm that we usually eat are harvested from a smaller variety of palm. We chopped them up and put the in container of salt water to bathe and brine, and plan to eat them in a few days. When they were good and ready, I prepared them in a mixed vegetable salad and they were amazing!

Later in the week Terri let me in on another locals only secret: sprouted coconut. If you leave a coconut that has fallen of the tree until it sprouts, then carefully bust open the middle where the juice usually is you will find something completely different inside. The juice has dried and turned into something that has an almost meringue/angel food cake like consistency and tastes just like sweetened shredded coconut. Probably one of the coolest things my taste buds have ever experienced!