I live 30 miles south of the city that has a Nature's Pantry near me, and even then they don't always have good Thai baby coconuts or coconuts at all. They're also very expensive and I can't afford them.

Is there a way to substitute coconut meat with something else less expensive and more readily available in recipes? So many of the recipes I want to try have coconut meat in them, and I wish I could afford them, but I can't.