Who Knew?

They say your tastes change every 7 years. Not just the things you like, but the things you like to EAT. Either this is true, or something strange happened after I got sick, which may well be the case, since I don’t love coffee the way I used to.

Anyway, it seems that I now like coconut, after a life-long and major dislike of it. Not only do I like it, but I’ve actually been craving it, and, for the first time in my life, I bought some the last time I was grocery shopping. It’s probably hard to imagine that someone could reach their late 40s and not know the first thing about buying coconut (sweetened? natural?), but there it is.

Today I made really tasty coconut cookies from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. I love this site both because it has wonderful recipes as well as reviews about them. I typically only try a recipe if several people say it’s good, and this one got well-deserved good reviews. These cookies taste very much like chocolate chip cookies, except with coconut instead of the chips.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups flaked coconut

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C.) Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually blend in the flour mixture, then mix in the coconut. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly toasted. Cool on wire racks.

I love to bake, which isn’t good for either my waistline or my sweetie’s, so my next step will be to play with this recipe and start substituting for the butter and the sugar. In the meantime, I’m off to enjoy a couple of these with a cold glass of milk.