Cantacoco Smoothie

You know how sometimes, life just starts getting crazy and you can't keep up your habits? Yeah.

Actually, it pleases me when these things happen. Most of the time. After all, most of my habits only exist to prevent me from getting bored. If I know what I am going to do at any given time, I don't have to wonder about what I'm going to do at any given time. But... sometimes something neat happens, and it prevents me from completing my habitual activities. For a whole two and a half weeks I was unable to a) run in circles every other day, b) blog midweek, c) pine about missing my cats and my friends 24 hours a day. I went home to Seattle for awhile, and came back with the two sweet kitties whom I've been missing more than anything else.

None of this is relevant to my post, of course, save the part about being unable to blog midweek for awhile. I meant to, at one point. I made a delightful red kale and golden beet salad, but I never actually got around to typing up a post. Such is life.

So now that life is settling down, I bring you a smoothie. Because I am a fan of fruit, and you should be too.

Oh! And it's evil, I mustn't forget to mention. (My goal for the week, you see, is to use my powers for evil.) Clearly it's evil, as none of my ingredients were sourced even a little bit locally. Well, I guess the cantaloupe comes from Mexico, and I am closer to Mexico than I used to be. But honestly - it's not even the same country. None of them are from the same country as me, none are from the same country as each other, and none of them are in season. HA! How's that for evil?

(Please, though - somebody, stop me from coming up with all these ridiculous names for things.)


CANTACOCO SMOOTHIE

fresh young coconut (they look like... well, see below)
small-medium ripe banana
1/4 small-medium cantaloupe

This (above) is what a fresh young coconut looks like. The white part is just a fibrous cover over the round coconut (like the ones you may be used to seeing), and it was taken out of a big green thing, which you probably will never see. Fresh young coconuts are full to the brim with clear liquid, which tastes like cool, sweet, refreshing water. The flesh is white, and soft and a little jellylike - unlike that of mature coconuts (the round ones with the brown hairy husk). Most of the ones you find in stores are from Thailand, and mine was no exception. They are at Asian markets and some natural food stores, and perhaps normal grocery stores, but I wouldn't know.

1. Get into your coconut. Take a sharp, large knife (I prefer to use a standard-sized chef's knife) and shave the fibrous part off the top of the coconut. You'll have to go around shaving bits off in a circle, but it should take you about 30 seconds total.

2. Hold the coconut in one hand, and take your knife in the other and tap the sharp heel of your knife (hard) all around the top of the coconut in a circle.



This is not difficult, because the weight of the knife does most of the work. You don't have to grip the handle super hard or anything. But you will have to hit it kind of hard. Experiment until you get the right amount of pressure. You should hear it crack when you get in.



3. Carefully pop off the top, and there will probably be some liquid that spills out. It should be super full.



Pour this liquid through a strainer into some kind of container. It's ok if little fibers get into it. You'll never notice them. If you're super anal about that kind of thing, you can strain it through a coffee filter or paper towel.



4. You should have a coconut and a top of a coconut. Use a spoon to scrape out all the flesh into another container. This is easy peasy. When you're done, take care to remove the hard bits of shell that may be clinging to some of the white flesh. A little bit of brown stuck to it is fine, but no hard bits.



5. YAY! You are done with that bit. Now you can cut up a cantaloupe quarter, as shown.



Remove the seeds from the center, and then cut once down the middle (like you were cutting it into two long slices, but don't go through the rind), and slice it many times across, then run the knife around underneath everything. Ta da! Another 30 seconds.

6. Put all the coconut flesh, half the coconut water, the cantaloupe, and a sliced up banana into a blender. Or, if you don't have a blender but have a wand blender, into a bowl.



I wasn't sure if I wanted the whole banana or the whole quarter cantaloupe, so I only added half of each at first. But then after blending and tasting, I decided to add the rest. And then I blended again. You should just add it all the first time and blend once.



It's a pretty simple breakfast smoothie. If you like, you can add some plain yogurt to it. I like it as is. It's not as thick as some smoothies, but I don't care. If you want it thicker, and colder, you can pre-cut and freeze the cantaloupe and banana ahead of time and blend them frozen into it. But whatever you do, don't add ice.

I like this smoothie, (and other smoothies using the same model), because it doesn't taste like watered-down under-ripe fruit. It tastes strong. Strong and good.

Speaking of strong fruit, maybe some day I'll make a smoothie with durian. If you haven't had durian, be sure to try it. Another Asian market find... just make sure you don't open it in a less-than-well-ventilated area. Outside is best.

Enjoy your exotic fruiting.