While I am just making things up as I go along, my friend Isabel is a registered holistic nutritionist and graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts — so she actually knows what she’s talking about. She has a lot of great, nutritious recipes on her website, ForkBytes, and I had been wanting to make the ginger-coconut brown rice for a while.

So, Saturday morning, when I realized we were out of bananas and I needed something relatively quick for breakfast, I decided to try adapting the recipe to oatmeal instead.

I really like these extra thick rolled oats, and I have seen them in most grocery stores. But any type of oatmeal would be fine, you may just have to adjust the cooking time.

Something else I learned from Isabel’s website: Lowfat or “lite” coconut milk is actually just regular coconut milk with more water. So unless a recipe specifically calls for the lowfat kind, there is no reason to ever buy it. You can just add water to the regular kind.

I am avoiding dairy for two weeks, so I made a cup of chai with almond milk to go with the oatmeal. Aren’t these tea cups adorable? I love the octopus tentacle-as-handle.

I had a pretty coconutty weekend — I also made coconut pancakes and a pineapple-coconut-banana smoothie (which I need to tweak before I post). I hope you like coconut!

Ginger-coconut oatmeal (inspired by Isabel Clark’s Ginger-coconut brown rice) **Note: This recipe only serves one person**
1/2 teaspoon grated (or finely chopped) fresh ginger
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup oatmeal (I like Bob’s Red Mill extra-thick rolled oats)
Dash of cinnamon
Brown sugar to taste

Place ginger, coconut milk and water in a small pot and bring to a boil (stirring occasionally). Stir in oats, reduce heat to low and cook according to oatmeal package directions and your preference (I cooked mine 10 minutes, but regular Quaker oats need less time). Stir in cinnamon, remove oatmeal from heat and allow to sit for a minute or two.

If your oatmeal gets too thick, add a little extra coconut milk or water. Add brown sugar to taste.