Frantic Home Cook – Home cooking, Recipes, Healthy, Frugal

I crave coconut.  Anything coconut.  Well, except maybe this thing (Commence coconut crab nightmares…NOW!)  My youngest says coconut makes her gag which makes me wonder if she was switched in the hospital.

On our honeymoon, hubby and I ran into a guy who was splitting coconuts and offered one for us to drink.  He said it was “good for the digestion.”  What he meant was, bring a roll of toilet paper with you. Do you think they ever tire of playing that joke on tourists?   Fortunately, I didn’t drink much of it.  You see, like an idiot, I expected natural coconut to be sweet like SWEETENED coconut that you buy.  (Because, you know…I’m a rube.)

So naturally, I use coconut in everything and this Baked Coconut Tilapia with Fruit Salsa is like dinner and dessert at the same time.  And YET it’s good for you!  (OK, health police, please don’t hunt me down again. I know it’s not tofu, but it is baked and it is fish and it has fruit.  There’s gotta be healthy in there somewhere.)  Plus it’s easy!  Follow along with me.

I usually do about 2 cups Panko (those hippy little Japanese bread crumbs…Love ‘em!  But you can use regular breadcrumbs if you want) and 1 cup of coconut.  Sometimes I throw in a little cayenne.

Another little trick which I didn’t do in this recipe: Mix your Panko or breadcrumbs with about 1 tsp of canola oil and toss well.  Put your panko or breadcrumbs in the oven and toast them for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  It really helps give baked foods that “crispy-fried” crunchiness when you bread with pretoasted breadcrumbs.

Now for the salsa.

See that fruit cup?  I was going to buy a pineapple, a mango and a papaya but realized that the this was a much more frugal alternative.  Packed in juice, no less.

You know the rest.  Put it on the fish all pretty like and accept the kudos.