What I find works best for me is to make a kind of chocolate treat. I have
this for breakfast, and it keeps me going for hours.
This is a mix of whole, chopped or ground nuts, dried fruits, seeds, spices,
coconut in various forms such as desiccated, or in flakes and strips. I also
add plain cocoa and sometimes a sprinkle of xylitol. Some people add wheat
germ. One could also add things such as Maca.
The idea is to choose what you want to eat, then prepare it in such a way that
you can mix it with coconut oil and set it hard in the fridge or freezer. In
winter you may need to put the oil jar in hot water until it is runny and mix
up quickly before it hardens in the cold air. That's when it's handy to have
the dry ingredients ready mixed. You choose the proportions according to taste
and availability.
I pre-mix my dry ingredients now, then it is quicker and more convenient to
make a fresh batch when needed. When I bring the nuts, seeds etc. home from
the shops, I grind or chop whatever needs that, such as flax seeds and so on,
then mix it all in a big plastic container. It's as well for me to add cloves,
ginger, cinnamon etc. at the same time, or I might forget, and those are part
of my health recipe also. Google for the health benefits of various spices and
make your choice from what you find.
When I mix a new batch, I mix whatever quantity I see fit of oil or dry
ingredients together, adding more of either to get a consistency that is not
going to be too dry and so not stick together, but also not so sloppy that it
will taste unpleasantly oily. I find I need the cocoa to fill in the gaps;
just the mix and oil doesn't seem to work as well.
Pretty much the best surface to put it on to set is the paper made for baking
with. I line a flat tin with it, and put the mix on it. I separate roughly
into squares to make it easier to break the pieces off when they are cold and
hard. Almost like Teflon. Keep it chilled except when you are about to eat
it. After it is set in the tin, I break it up and put it in a container in the
fridge. It will melt and fall apart if you have it in the warmth for long. It
is still edible that way, and if you need to you can take some of the mix away
with you even in warm weather in a screw top jar and have a few spoonfuls
whenever you want.
I have in the past decorated each square while still soft with a date, or a
piece of frozen fruit such as a raspberry, but by and large I don't fiddle,
just get it in a pan to chill.
A little oil on a cold sweet dish such as fruit or ice cream can be interesting
for its hard texture, and you could mix spice or xylitol or date paste in with
it to have as a sauce that will harden, or anything else you think would suit.
Myself, I don't use it much to cook, but I might wipe it round a pan before
adding olive oil to cook. I value it too highly to risk wasting any.
A friend of mine had a way of preparing crumpets by adding VCNO to a frying pan
and heating the crumpets in that instead of toasting them in a toaster. This
made them kind of soft and plump rather than hard and crisp.
Another way is to use it on your toast, bread or muffins etc. like butter. You
can mix it with butter if you want. It does taste different, but it's good.
Jolly handy to always have a butter substitute on hand that doesn't go off.
You could also put it in your mashed potato or cooked vegetables for smoothness.
I did sometimes put it in hot cocoa, but the oil was difficult to manage on the
sides of the cup afterwards. Well, not so much difficult, as wasteful where it
clings to the cup. Also, I didn't quite like the fattiness in hot drinks.
Googling coconut and recipe will likely bring you a host of other ideas that
might suit. Laksa with coconut milk is nice - many different recipes come up
on a web search.
Bon appetit
Rowena
I want to use coconut oil, but other than a teaspoon every now and then, I
can't think of many ways to use it other than on my skin. I can't cook with it
because husband doesn't like coconut's flavor. I added some to bran muffins.
I wondered about putting it in smoothies....since it gets so hard when cold,
wouldn't it just be a clump in the smoothie?
