Coconut Jicama Rice

I’ve learned a lot about the nursing profession being raised by a nurse and having many nurses in the family, it’s a very high-stress job that requires a lot. It also affects people very differently, I’m surprised at the number of nurses that are over-weight and/or addicted to chain-smoking. You would think the profession would encourage a healthier life style, but for many the stress has the opposite effect. Also there seems to be flowing amounts of junk food at easy reach for stress relief thanks to patients family, doctors, etc. bringing in treats of the worst kind.

The current floor my mom works on has a lot of potluck dinners, at least one a month and she usually finds out about them a day before – not much time to prepare a dish. Most just bring in pizzas, desserts and other pre-made items that are easy to pick up. I decided to help her out with one yesterday and make a raw carrot cake to take, a great opportunity to test a raw treat among an unsuspecting crowd. With hubby’s help, we had the cake completed within 30 minutes.

As with many potlucks, there was a ton of food – seven layer dips, strange noodle/meat dishes, many desserts, much more than the group could eat. Still, the carrot cake was a huge hit with over 3/4 of it being gobbled and when some found out it was raw vegan, they took pieces home to spouses. One co-worker who is gluten and lactose intolerant due to other health issues was very grateful for it. a few helped themselves to second servings after seeing the ingredient list, my mom had to give quite a few recipe copies out, it seemed to be an eye-opening treat for many, raw desserts seem to be a good raw gateway food!

One of the reasons I love Ani’s carrot cake recipe so much is the generous amounts of shredded coconut it uses and after making it, I was craving coconut and decided to experiment with the monster jicama sitting in my fridge for dinner last night, I have a great jicama rice recipe using coconut vinegar, but I decided to up the coconut flavors by adding dried, shredded coconut.

Coconut Jicama Rice

• 6 cups chopped jicama
• 1/2 cup shredded, dried coconut
• 1/2 pine nuts
• 2 tsp. salt
• 3 tbsp. agave nectar
• 2 tbsp. coconut vinegar

Chop jicama and coconut in a food processor to rice-like texture. Pour contents into a nut milk bag and squeeze liquid out. Retain the liquid to drink with meal or for smoothies, has a sweet, coconut flavor. Place the drained mixture into a large bowl and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Warm up for 30 minutes in the dehydrator is desired and enjoy. Makes 4-6 servings.

It makes a mildly-sweet rice with the dried coconut adding to the rice-like texture and perfect for Hawaiian, Indian or Asian themed raw meals. I also like it just by itself. Here I served with Kristen Suzanne’s Zucchini Hemp Hummus, a collard wrap and dipping veggies – great light meal or office lunch.

It can also be used with nori wraps for raw sushi, stuffed with other ingredients into collard leaves for raw wraps, salad topping, top with pineapple salsa or a stand a lone side like the plain white rice served as a side at Asian restaurants. And it keeps in the fridge for about 4 days.

I basically had a smaller dinner repeat for lunch today with a piece of the raw carrot cake – coconut overload lunch, mmmmm!