Coconut Waffles - March 5, 2011

Harvest Grains Coconut Waffles

For Nick's birthday over the weekend, I made him a special, tropical-themed breakfast. Those of you that know Nick know that he's not much of a winter guy. He's a good sport and all, but he doesn't LOVE it like I do. Anyway, for the weekend at least, we tried to pretend we were on a tropical island somewhere, starting with breakfast. I made up a batch of waffles using the Whole Grain Milling Company mix my Mom got us for Christmas (a local favorite of mine!). I made a few substitutions to the recipe including switching out the vegetable oil for coconut oil, and replacing half of the milk with coconut milk, which I had leftover from the curry we made a week or so ago. With the rest of the coconut milk, I made a little syrup by seasoning it with cinnamon, cardamom and allspice. We topped our waffles with this syrup, plus some sweetened coconut flakes and macadamia nuts. They were delicious with the layers of coconut flavor, and not overly sweet, which is how I like them.



Birthday Breakfast Medley

Along with our waffles, we enjoyed some coffee from Nick's new French press, a birthday gift from his parents, and some freshly squeezed orange juice. All in all, it was a delightful way to start off the day. We followed up with a visit to Minneapolis' new brewery, Harriet Brewing Company, and picked up a growler of Nick's favorite West Side Ale. It's great and we are so excited to have a brewery to visit in our beloved city (It makes us feel like hipsters). Next we headed over to our sister city, St. Paul, and checked out the Como Conservatory for a dose of tropical greenery and humidity, which felt awesome when compared to our bitterly dry air. It was a blissful little retreat where Nick got to pretend we didn't have more snow on the way.