During my college years, a wonderful family from Iraq befriended my roommate and me. They’d often cook us amazing food, including a wonderfully fragrant rice dish that included heavy spices, almonds, and raisins. These dishes floated back into my mind as I began thinking of ways to use Numi’s new Turmeric Chai Golden Latte powder for a savory dish.
You might think it’s a bit odd to add a powdered tea to rice, but many Persian rice dishes call for spices such as nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom. These spices are all elements of Numi’s unsweetened Turmeric Chai blend! Since the turmeric in this recipe gives the rice a lovely golden-orangey hue, I came up with the fun idea to style the dish for Halloween as pumpkins!

Of course, you can also serve the dish as-is without the extra step of creating pumpkins. But how can you resist?
Ingredients
2 cups of white jasmine rice
2 cups of water
2 cups of coconut milk
1 ½ tsp Numi Turmeric Chai Golden Latte mix
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
Jumbo pitted olives for pumpkin faces
1 green onion stem (or celery stalk) for pumpkin stems
Instructions
Cook rice in 2 cups of water and 2 cups of organic coconut milk. When the rice is about ¾ of the way cooked, add spices, salt, and pepper. When fully cooked, remove from heat and stir in almonds. Let cool slightly, then mold into balls with oiled hands. Add green onion “stems.” Cut pumpkin “faces” from jumbo pitted olives and press into the rice balls.
- 2 cups of white jasmine rice
- 2 cups of water
- 2 cups of coconut milk
- ¼ cup almonds
- 1 ½ tsp Numi Turmeric Chai Golden Latte mix
- ½ tsp turmeric
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- Jumbo pitted olives for pumpkin faces
- 1 green onion stem (or celery stalk) for pumpkin stems
- Cook rice in 2 cups of water and 2 cups of organic coconut milk.
- When the rice is about ¾ of the way cooked, add spices, salt, and pepper.
- When fully cooked, remove from heat and stir in almonds.
- Let cool slightly, then mold into balls with oiled hands.
- Add green onion or celery stick “stems.”
- Cut pumpkin “faces” from jumbo pitted olives and press into the rice balls.
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