A post that's not about chicken!

How about some coconut oil?

Weird, I know, but so far, amazing.

I bought a jar of coconut oil at Whole Foods ($9.99) a couple of weeks ago and it's been staring me down from the pantry ever since.  I really wasn't sure what to do with it, or how to use it.  I finally opened it on Tuesday and had a whiff.

By the way, when purchased, the oil was a white solid mass in the jar.  When I opened it Tuesday, it was completely liquid with a tiny amount of white, er, goo at the bottom.  I'm told this is perfectly normal, and will indeed go back and forth from solid to liquid as the temperature fluctuates.  No worries.

So I had a whiff, and it smelled very coconutty.  Hmmm.  What do I do with that?  So I had a taste.  Tastes pretty good.  So I spooned out a bit into a sautee pan, heated it up, and added sliced Vidalia onions and red peppers.

There was a definite coconutty flavor going on, but at the same time it really worked with the onions and peppers.  They came out just as sweet as they could be. 

Now, I've sauteed some peppers and onions before, this isn't my first rodeo.  But this was the first time that they didn't get overly browned and soggy.  They held up perfectly well against the oil. 

The second time I used the oil was for fish.  Just some simple frozen tilapia pieces for the Kid and me.  I seasoned them very simply with salt and pepper, and sauteed them up in the CNO (you've got your EVOO, your OO, now I'm laying it down with CNO--coconut oil.).  The fish was outstanding.  The Kid and I ate every single bite and never looked back. 

As I understand it, the CNO is almost all saturated fat.  Which sounds just awful, right?  But from what research I have done, that's ok.  It's a natural fat, and is actually far superior for your health than any manufactured fat could ever be. 

**Note** you will NEVER find margarine in my house.  That's just the way it is here.

Then there's a whole chemistry thing that mostly went over my head about short-chain and long-chain fats, maybe even medium-chain in there some where, all I can say is I wish the food industry would quit yanking our chains and make it easier for us to tell what is what in our foods.  But we won't go into that now, there's a hell of a lot I'm learning about the "food industry" that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

*stepping down from the soapbox*

Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to working with CNO more often, and I'll be sure to report my findings here.