Thing-a-day.com

I was inspired when I saw coconuts for 99c at the bodega, but when I got home it took me half an hour just to get all the delicious meat out of the nut.

I keep making instruments that are too long for my short arms to play comfortably. You’d think I would’ve learned from the rotten stick guitar.

The frets are bamboo skewers - I tuned them by ear so the tuning is kind of shaky. I might add more frets later. Note how the bamboo bridge rests on a point on the membrane (architectural vellum)- this helps to transfer the vibrations of the string. The pick is made of two layers of vellum glued together.

The coconut banjo sounds like this.

What I really made today? A mess of my kitchen!

I promised the office I would bring chocolate truffles tomorrow, which I make on a regular basis. I wanted to try chocolate with coconut this time though, and decided instead of mixing my usual soy milk with the chocolate I would use coconut milk (I used canned Thai coconut milk, which is much thicker than the Goya brand coconut milk I use when making flan). Then I’d roll the truffles in shredded coconut (I usually roll them in cinnamon or powdered sugar). Despite the fact that I make these things frequently, I failed today.

I didn’t get the consistency right. I don’t usually measure things but just go by how it looks. Well, since I knew I’d be sharing it here, I figured I’d better measure things so I could give the recipe. Apparently, I measured out too much of the coconut milk! Part of the problem of course is that the Thai coconut milk is a totally different consistency than soy milk. The mix never hardened up enough to roll truffles out of it. So then I tried adding the shredded coconut, thinking it would dry it up a bit and make it easier to roll but it didn’t.

Finally I decided I’d just make cookie bars. The recipe for the cookies is as follows:

Cream together:

1 cup butter or margarine (I use soy based instead)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

Add:

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla (I use a special kind imported from India that has no alcohol content)

Sift together:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Add the sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

After I let it cool for a few minutes, I melted down the chocolate-coconut mixture again so that it would be spreadable and spread it across the cookie. Then sprinkled the top with more shredded coconut. It’s in the fridge right now, in hopes that the chocolate will firm up again and simply act like a think frosting.

Pictures:

The Chocolate

The Chocolate with Coconut

The Cookie, Baked

The Cookie with the Chocolate-Coconut Mix Spread

The Product Going Into the Fridge

UPDATED:

The Finished Product