Our First Coconut Experience

There's a first time for everything. Personally I hate coconut. I hate the smell, the taste, the texture.  But when Abby spotted a "real coconut" in the grocery store...how could her Daddy resist?

Have you ever opened a coconut?  I had NO CLUE how to get into that bad boy.  So this was our fun project in school today.  The kids were totally enamored with the brown ball!

First, we "researched" the process on Youtube:

Realizing it was a bigger job than I wanted to get into, I employed the help of Dear Hubby. I'm so glad he works from home! Um. Yeah. So we do not own a corkscrew...so we had to use a bbq skewer to poke the first hole.  PJ then used a butter knife to make the hole larger.

During this entire process we tried many things and Abby kept saying, "I don't think this is a good idea..."  She tends to be the cautious one in our family. :)

Next, we let the coconut milk or watery-substance drain into the glass.  It was actually very dirty, so we later used a coffee filter to clean out some of the "juice" for tasting.

PJ then beat the outer shell with a can opener.  The guy in the video used the handle of a butter knife. We did this too...and broke our knife. :(   So the can opener was the next logical option.  It was loud.
VERY loud.

But it worked! I love Abby's initial response!

 

Abby loved it! And she and PJ carved out much of the coconut and ate it.

Caedmon and I are like-minded when it comes to coconut preferences.  I tried it and think I'll pass.