Green Vegetables with Rice and Fruity Coconut Sauce

I've had coconut sauce on my mind all week! Unfortunately, it's made with loads of processed sugar or ketchup.

Since sugar is not something either, I or my family consume regularly, ketchup is only allowed on special days. 

Since, I love the sweet and sour flavour in Asian cuisine so I needed a real solution to this problem. 

Asian cuisine is known for its versatility, which allows us to change some ingredients without losing its authentic flavour. 

Today we are making Green Vegetables with Fruity Coconut Sauce but we are throwing the processed sugar out the window. The flavour and consistency in this coconut sauce, sweet and creamy, will be brought to you by mango. 

Yes! 

Mango!

This is not your typical sweetener, but it really does the job. You won't be missing processed sugar, at all!

That's the beauty of Asian cuisine, you can make slight modifications and still have a delicious dish. 

Another good example of this is the Hokkaido and Spinach Vegan Green Curry recipe we recently made. The vegan green curry is, originally, a spicy dish but I modified it a bit so I could eat it without crying and actually enjoy my meal.

This recipe we are about to make is quite simple. It's very light but will definitely give your body all the nourishment it needs. 

We are using coconut milk to make the coconut sauce rich and creamy, this is an excellent plant-based alternative to achieve the consistency we are after. 

Coconut products are great but lately, I stumble upon a lot of info about how bad coconut and especially coconut oil is for your body and your health. I wasn't convinced so I look into it. 

I was not surprised by my findings. The media is focusing on the negative attributes and blowing them out of proportion. 

But like everything else in life, it's all about balance and not overdoing it. Personally, I'll stick to all things coconut with moderation, of course.

The coconut sauce is like the cherry on top of the cake, we are pairing it with a few other ingredients to make sure you have a colourful and flavourful meal.  

And, we love practicality, so we are using very few and simple ingredients. The main ones are:

• Broccoli
• Snap peas
• Tofu
• Brown rice 

As you can see, this is a well-rounded meal with veggies packed with vitamins, minerals, fibre, and antioxidants. We also have a good healthy source of carbs and a plant-based source of protein.

This is one of those recipes that allows you to multitask; the rice needs to be boiled and we are steaming the broccoli. While this is happening you can focus on the coconut sauce and then just integrate everything. 

This will save you a bunch of time and will allow you to serve everything together while it's still nice and warm. Just make sure you don't forget about them! You will end up with burned rice stuck to the bottom of your pot, and pale and soggy broccoli.