Productive

My plan was to go to they gym yesterday.  I kinda love when that plan doesn't work out though.  Instead I had to take my car in for some upkeep because I was overdue for an oil change, my windshield fluid had run out a couple of weeks ago (and paying $7 a week for a car wash just to clean my windshield seemed like overkill....), and just yesterday morning I got a little light telling me the tire pressure in one of my tires was low - which freaked me out the most of all of these things.  I was terrified that I would walk out of work to a flat tire on my car.  Thank goodness that wasn't the case, but I did take it as a sign to finally get my car to the shop for it's regularly required TLC.  Afterwards it was too late for the gym (aw shucks!), so I headed home to make some of the foods I had planned for the weekend and then lazily avoided like herbed hummus (I had to add extra olive oil and salt to get the flavor/consistency I wanted) and coconut bread.  For the bread (think banana bread-like bread, not sourdough-type) I followed the recipe for the most part with a few minor changes.  See below and enjoy!

Coconut Bread
10 oz butter, softened
2 tbsp meyer lemon zest
juice of 1/2 meyer lemon
3/4 cup sugar
3 egg whites
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup dessicated coconut (dried, flaked, unsweetened)
2/3 cup almond meal
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
juice of other half of meyer lemon

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 320 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease and flour your baking pan(s).  Or, in my case I used four stick-free, heat resistant, mini paper bread loaf containers.  
2. If you don't have almond meal, simply take some blanched almonds and whiz them up in a food processor until they are fine.  You can usually find almond meal/flour, pre-ground, in the baking aisle of most stores now, though. 
3. Combine the butter, zest and sugar and mix until pale and creamy.  
4. Add the egg whites gradually.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again.  
5. Sift the flour and baking powder over the butter mixture and mix.
6. Add in the juice of half of a lemon and fold in the almonds, coconut and buttermilk.  
7. Pour into your prepared pan(s) and bake for approximately 1-1 1/4 hours or until the bread is ever so lightly lightly browned and a cake tester (a tooth pick or in my case a leftover chopstick from thai takeout) comes clean when inserted (cooking time will be less if you use more pans).  Let cool.
8. Mix the confectioners (powdered) sugar with the juice from the other half of the meyer lemon to make a glaze.  Spoon the glaze over each of the coconut loaves and let harden before serving.