How to Make Coconut Milk

I always thought making your own nut milk was a long process needing lots of special equipment, but I was happy to find out, when I actually looked up how to do it, how easy it is!  And the only equipment you need is a blender / smoothie maker and a nut milk bag - if you have a blender in the higher price ranges, the process will probably be a bit quicker, but you don't need anything expensive.

I used 2 coconuts to make close to 1 litre of milk.  I use mature coconuts because I haven't ever seen green ones around here, but it doesn't matter, mature coconuts are perfect.

First pour the water out of the coconuts, you don't want to waste that because it's nutritious.  You're anyway going to use this water when making the milk, but if there's no water in them it's ok too, you just use filtered water instead.  My coconuts never have enough milk in them so I have to use filtered water in addition to the coconut water.

Remove the coconut meat, there's no need to remove the brown "skin", it'll make no difference to the milk. Rinse them in water to get them clean.  Break into smaller pieces and put in a blender.

I only do 1 coconut at a time otherwise the blender is too full and it takes longer to get everything chopped finely.

Add the coconut water you drained out before - pour it through a sieve to get rid of any coconut bits & hair.  If you need to add some more water, add filtered water.  Start with about 1 cup of liquid in total and add more if you see you would like a more diluted milk.  I usually add enough liquid so that it almost covers the coconut in the blender.  Blend until you have desiccated coconut, it only takes a couple of minutes.

Place a nut milk bag in a glass bowl and put everything in the blender into the bag - don't mess any coconut bits outside of the bag into the bowl because you don't want any bits in your milk.

Squish & squish the bag to get ALL the milk out, you wanna squish until no more milk comes out - all you want to have left in the bag is dry as possible desiccated coconut - you can use the coconut to make desiccated coconut.

Pour the milk into a glass bottle and refrigerate.  It keeps for about 3 days in the fridge.

See how to make your own desiccated coconut here (coming soon).

Vegan Lentil Carrot Burgers

These are a healthy alternative to meat or frozen burger patties.  Unlike most burger patties, these are actually nice when eaten just as is - I made these especially so that baby (well, 1 year & almost 2 month baby) can join us for our burger dinner.  :)

This makes about 9 small burgers.

2 1/2 cups cooked & drained lentils (about 1 cup dried), mashed (I blended them in a food processor - quicker than trying to mash 'em)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely grated carrots
3 tbs tomato paste
3/4 cup bread crumbs (I used gluten-free bread)
salt to taste
coconut or sunflower oil for frying (coconut will give it a slight coconutty taste)

• put lentils in a bowl & add all remaining ingredients except oil
• mix well
• shape into patties & fry both sides in a little oil until heated through

Make your burger and munch away!

We didn't have burger buns so we had to use sliced bread, and the slices were way bigger than the burgers so I used a cookie cutter to make smaller pieces of bread (this is the only shape I had that was just the right size)

Yum, a good burger.

Peppermint Crisp Tart

Ok, time for another naughty but nice dessert.  :)  Peppermint crisp tart is one of my faves.

It makes about 6 reasonable sized portions.

1 packet tennis biscuits (or some kind of flat coconut cookies if you don't have tennis biscuits)
1 can caramel
250ml fresh cream
1 small slab of peppermint crisp chocolate (I like using Cadbury's 100g peppermint slab - you don't need THAT much chocolate but I like left overs)

• pour caramel into a bowl and beat with an electric beater to get it smooth & soft
• pour cream into another bowl and beat until slightly firm - add to caramel and hand-mix until just combined
• place 1 layer of cookies in bottom of a glass dish (about 20cm x 2ocm) - no need to grease the dish
• snack on a few of the cookies - there'll be a few to spare
• pour over half of the caramel mixture, then grate some chocolate over
• repeat the layers one more time and place in fridge to set, at least an hour
• eat the rest of the chocolate