There’s this story I tell often; of my childhood friend D and how they always had cooked rice on hand at home.
She lived next door to the school we both attended, and I used to go to her house after school in the afternoons.
We ran around the house or watched movies, there were cookies in the kitchen which we could help ourselves to, which was probably why I went there so much.
There was usually always a pot of rice going on the stove, one afternoon when they were out of cookies, her stepmom, Mrs. H chopped up some mangoes, added in milk, sugar and a scoop of rice, although I was hesitant to try it initially, it turned out to be the most amazing thing I’d ever eaten.
I went home and promptly told my mom about it, and although she never made the mango rice concoction, she relented and for a while I ate rice every day for lunch and dinner.
That was until she showed me a book with pictures of kids sick with beriberi and said that was what happened to children who ate rice every day. That quelled my rice habit for a little while, but not for long.

I love rice… and as I’ve gotten older I’ve learnt to include more nutritious and bolder varieties of rice into my diet.
I hardly ever eat plain white rice anymore, because I enjoy creating nourishing and tasty rice recipes; the week I made my big pot of chili, I also cooked some rice using Thai red rice, black rice and parboiled rice to go with it.
The next week I had left over chili, so I made the brown basmati coconut rice;

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups water
• 2 cups brown basmati rice
• ½ cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/3 cup shredded coconut
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp chopped chives or flakes
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp red pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS

1. Rinse and drain the rice.
2. Combine rice, coconut milk, shredded coconut, olive oil, salt, chives, garlic and pepper flakes.
3. Stir well, cover and set to cook
4. Enjoy!