How To Make Coconut Milk

It's not like we can't go to the local grocery story and buy a can of coconut milk from the bakery section nowadays. Coconut milk has become so mainstream that we don't even need to schlep to our go-to asian market, which is FABULOUS. Can opener to can, spoon to swirl contents of said can around, and voila, you've got gata (coconut milk) for your dishes or dessert. 

Not that I'm old, but I can actually remember a time, IN THE USA, that I had to sit on a bench thingy called a kabayo that had a sharp razor device at the end and would kayod (scrape) the coconut meat from it's shell so that my mom or lilay (mother's aunt - in which I recently found out is NOT a filipino word or term but something I made up as a child and the entire family went along with it) could make milk from scratch. Now that I think about it, that was a dangerous job for a 5 year old! However I am grateful, because I remembered how to make it and most importantly know how much better fresh coconut milk is than canned. 

Here's a tutorial that I hope will inspire you to make your own gata.  Let me know how it turned out!