I’m Cuckoo for Coconut!

I’m detecting a theme in the eats lately, and it is coconut. It’s not necessarily a craving for coconut-flavored foods, but even so, coconut seems to be finding its way into my belly via the darndest things right now!

For example:

Turtle Mountain recently launched kefir and creamer made from coconut milk (as opposed to cow dairy), so obviously I’ve been dying to try both. They were on sale at Whole Foods this week, so I took the opportunity to get ‘em while the gettin’ was good.

I used the kefir in a cereal mess for breakfast this weekend.

While I was yoga-ing, I marinated a serving each of Kashi Go Lean and kamut puffs in 1/4 cup pumpkin and 1/2 cup coconut kefir. It was a fantastic soggy blob by the time I was ready to eat—just the way I like it. :) Oh, and the topping blob on the cereal blob is the BAT butter from last week. The creamer was great too, but I reckon you know what a cup of creamy coffee looks like!

In other coconut concoctions, I’ve been up to some more homemade vegan ice cream shenanigans! You will be pleased to know that this formula was definitely the easiest method yet. Ridiculously so, even.

You will NOT be pleased to know that it didn’t turn out so well.

At least the little chocolate bits were fabulous! I received these dark chocolate pistoles from Intentional Chocolate this week.

I felt the love from the chocolate, even if the ice cream was not lovin’ me back.

Basically, I got the idea for this ice cream recipe from a Whole Foods blog post. It involved eggs and advised simply omitting them in order to make the recipe vegan. Ok.

What they did not advise was whether or not you still needed to cook the coconut milk and sweetener prior to mixing and freezing. Naturally, I skipped the cooking step. The resulting “ice cream” was super icy, to the point where it was still crunchy after 30+ minutes of thaw time. It tasted great, of course, but smooth+creamy ice cream texture it had not. I think it comes down to either a) lack of simmering before freezing or b) lack of ice cream maker. Maybe both. Bottom line? Try the following at your own risk.

Stoopid Easy Vegan Coconut Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 can lite coconut milk
• 1/2 cup agave
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
  
  
  

Whir all ingredients in the blender for a minute or so to get it fluffy, then freeze. That’s all I did.

Major fail aside, let us admire my success:

I seem to remember lamenting the lack of blondies in my life a couple weeks back, at the beginning of Vegan MoFo. So I made VeggieGirl’s Pumpkin Carob Loaf, which was darn tasty.

Turns out, Diana, Pumpkin Carob Loaf was never intended to be a blondie recipe. Ergo, you will still crave blondies post-consumption.

So blondies I did bake! I used VeggieGirl’s foolproof vegan blondie formula and adapted it to create what I’ll call Turkish Delight Blondies.

Turkish Delight Blondies

Ingredients:

• 1 container So Delicious coconut milk yogurt, plain flavor (vanilla would work too)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup sugar/sweetener (I used NuNaturals stevia baking blend)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp maple syrup
• 1.25 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 5 dried figs, stems removed and chopped
• 5 medjool dates, pitted and chopped
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
• non-dairy milk as needed (I used unsweetened hemp milk)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350* and prepare a 8”x8” baking pan with nonstick spray.
2. Mix the yogurt through maple syrup together in a large bowl.
3. Add flour and baking soda; stir to combine.
4. Fold in figs, dates and coconut, adding milk as necessary in order to make the mixture stirrable and even, “but not too much!”
5. Bake for 32-35 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

It’s not news anymore, but VeggieGirl’s blondies are perfection. This batch was no exception! Well, with the exception of the stevia baking blend.

I continue to suspect that stevia is not my best friend in the world, as I was feeling rather, ahem, painfully musical within a half hour or so of eating a test blondie fresh out of the oven. I recommend sticking to sugar, sucanat, agave…whatever non-substitute sweetener you prefer. I received the stevia sample because I won Averie’s NuNaturals giveaway (thanks, Averie!), and while I enjoy little bits of it in my coffee, when it comes to consuming it in baked goods, my belly doth protest. I will test again tonight and see what happens, just to be sure.

All in the name of science, of course. ;)