Food Care is a great backyard organisation of interested gardeners and food enthusiasts in Darwin. We hold food shares, which are laid back work shops in differents hosts houses and accumulate in sharing of dishes made with locally grown ingredients. A cooking competetion is usually features  These are great events to get together with people who love to learn more about local produce and share food.This time the Food Care Share was held at number 99 and we had a work shop about making real coconut milk. We are lucky enough to have a few coconut trees in our yard and there are so many around Darwin, its weird that we buy so much tinned coconut, when we could make it, I suppose it is just so much quicker, but wow the taste difference between fresh and canned is incredible.

To make coconut milk, you need a spike to husk the coconut- use the freshly fallen brown variety to make milk. Then you make holes in it, through its eyes to get the water out, and then cut in half. A machete does this pretty well. Now for the scraper- a tool found in the pacific islands and all around. It is attached to a piece of wood or a bench and the inside of the coconut is squeezed out into a bowl, with the coconut water in. This is then squeezed through fabric. A clean tshirt will do.

After everyone had a go at the making process we had a taste test. I thought the diffrence in taste might not be worth the work, but wow it really was. All of the kids loved it.

We shared some amazing dishes and had an okra dish competition. A hard veggie to love, but we may be converted….

Roasted jack fruit seeds- the best snack in town