Good Eating Monday: Coconut!

Welcome back! It's almost August! Time does fly!
It's stormy again today and was thundering. It's a local coastal storm. The cat doesn't like the sound of rain and thunder. She used to crouch under a stool, butt, in more recent years, tends to ask me to follow her to the back bedroom and have me lay down with her to stroke and comfort her.
It gave me a chance to close my eyes and rest for 20 minutes.
I'm a little tired today because we got to bed late. After last night's Bible study here at the house, one of the young men wanted to stay and talk about some stuff going on in his life.
 We talked from 9 to midnight.

Anyway, today's healthy eating topic is coconut! 
Generally coconut is either a "love it" or "hate it" affair. I can't say I've ever met anyone who was neutral about liking coconut.
But I happen to be one of those happy people who love it.

I wasn't the only coconut lover in the family. Whenever we had a box of assorted chocolates around it was always a race to find and eat the coconut ones first!

For special occasions, such as Valentines, my husband will gift me with a Mounds bar and I can't think of a more delightful dark-chocolate covered treat!

Coconut is full of health benefits and the link below lists them:
http://www.organicfacts.net/organic-oils/organic-coconut-oil/health-benefits-of-coconut-oil.html
I read recently that coconut oil is very good for increasing that good HDL cholesterol, so I purchased a jar.
It is tasty. But all oil is high calorie, so I don't want to use a lot.

 I've been using a teaspoon and dipping out a tiny bit to add to things I'm sauteing: onions, mushrooms, eggs, veggies, etc.
I also read coconut is good for reducing weight, because it contains short and medium-chain fatty acids that help in taking off excessive weight. It is also easy to digest...and increases the body metabolism by removing stress on pancreases, thereby burning out more energy.

Coconut oil can be used baking--which I might try with something I want enriched with coconut flavor, like something chocolate or maybe muffins.
Coconut Milk, which you can buy in a can ready to use, can be added to rice so you steep your rice in coconut milk rather then just water. It's also a main ingredient in many Curry and Thai dishes, particularly many Thai soups.
Shredded Coconut comes both sweetened and unsweetened.
For a savory recipe, I recommend  using unsweet shredded. I made coconut meatballs once and used sweetened shreds, because the recipe said either could be used and combined with the sweet coconut milk-based sauce---well, it was a little too sweet.
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