Weekends are my time to make big breakfasts (as in… more than just toast and coffee), and this past weekend I whipped up a batch of delectable coconut orange pancakes.

This is another tester recipe for Tay and her blog Vegan in the Sun. These were so tender and delicious I am still thinking about them days later. We ate them topped with margarine, maple syrup and freshly shredded coconut.

Although I can’t share the pancake recipe with you, I can share with you…

How to open a coconut

1. Drill three holes in the three “eyes” of the coconut, through to the inside cavity.

2. Place drilled coconut upside down over a measuring cup to drain the coconut water. (Don’t throw this coconut water away… drink it, it’s yummy and nutritious.)

3. After coconut water has drained, wrap coconut in a towel and put it on a hard surface such as a garage floor.

4. Whack the coconut a couple of times with a mallet. The force of the mallet will separate the coconut flesh from the hard shell. You may have to give it another whack or two if there are still some bigger pieces with the shell not yet detached.

5. Using a sharp paring knife or a vegetable peeler, remove the brown skin that is remaining on the coconut flesh. Rinse pieces with water to remove any bits of detritus.

6. Coconut can now be shredded (food processor makes this easy).

These vegan accras (Bajan fishcakes) are tasty little fritters seasoned with the flavour of the sea. It is another tester recipe for Taymer and her fab blog Vegan in the Sun. You can read more interesting stuff about accras here on Tay’s blog.

We served these little morsels of faux fishy goodness with cheesy potatoes (using cheese sauce from Tay’s Bajan macaroni pie, which I also recently blogged about), vegan prawns, on-the-vine tomatoes and beetroot. Eclectic choice of foods, yes, but also very delicious!

A little side note about “fishy” flavours: I used to equate a fishy taste with fish, until I had sushi for the first time and realised that fish don’t taste of fish, they taste of seaweed. A “fishy” taste is actually a seaweed taste… a taste of the sea. So if anyone gives you the old “if you are veggie why do you want to eat something that tastes of fish”, you can tell them you like the taste of seaweed!

Today for my MoFo vegan world tour, I am featuring a couple of tester recipes courtesy of Taymer and her blog of Caribbean delights, Vegan in the Sun.

First up is Cheeseless Vegan Bajan Macaroni Pie. I made this tonight and it was so tasty and delicious, I really had to fight back the little devil on my shoulder who was prodding me with his little pitchfork and saying “I know you’re full, but it tastes sooo good… go on, finish it off”.

It was so full of creamy cheesy goodness that Mr Thrifty couldn’t believe there was no commercial vegan cheese in it. The other thing I loved about this sauce is that it doesn’t congeal when it cools down the way cheese sauce made with commercial vegan cheese does.

After you’ve finished salivating over the photo, you really must hop on over to Taymer’s blog and check out the background on this culinary piece of heaven.

I made these scrumptious Coconut turnovers a couple of weeks back. Even though I messed up on the sweet dough (dough and I don’t always get along, doh!), they were still amazingly delicious. The almond-scented coconut filling was delightful. If you want to see what they are supposed to look like, be sure to check out Taymer’s food-porn shot here.