Teff

I hadn't heard of teff until I took a cooking class at Kripalu a few years ago.  But like quinoa, teff is making a resurgence and can now be found with other baking supplies at Whole Foods. (It's the one that looks suspiciously like hot chocolate mix - probably shouldn't mix those up.)  For those who haven't yet experienced this unique ingredient, teff is a grain native to Ethiopia that has a really interesting nutty, even somewhat chocolaty taste (in my opinion).  It's rather dense, like whole wheat flour, so baking with it requires lots of leavener, and it has a fine, grainy texture in most finished products.

Below is a recipe for teff banana pancakes from my favorite source for breakfast recipes.  I finally found the magic amount of heat to use on my pancakes so that they didn't have a black sear on the outside like they so often do - medium heat, about 2 minutes/side.

Teff banana pancakes
From: Going Wild in the Kitchen by Leslie Cerrier

This recipe yielded 12 pancakes for me (about 2-3 inches across).

2 tbsp flax seeds
2 ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups teff flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Grind the flax seeds in a coffee grinder or blender.  Combine in a blender or food processer everything from the flax seeds to the oil and blend well.  In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients, then add the mixed wet ingredients.  Make pancakes as usual and enjoy!

Fabulous flax seeds

Flax seeds totally saved my butt last night, so I decided to give them their own feature on this little blog. 

I had a wicked cookie craving so I decided to whip up some oatmeal cookies, since they're fast and I had all the ingredients in the house already - or so I thought...  With half the ingredients already mixed together in my sugar-craving haze, I reached for the eggs only to find they were all gone (used up for some home made pasta that didn't go as planned the first time.)  I usually use this handy chart in the back of the Joy of Cooking to find substitutions, but there were no good ideas for eggs, so I was at the mercy of the internet.  This happened once before, and the internet suggested substituting 1 ripe banana/ 2 eggs, but that didn't work very well.  Option #2?  Well, actually this was more like 5 or 6 down on the lists of substitutes I found, but it worked so well!

1 egg = 1 tbsp ground flax seeds + 3 tbsp water; mix until gooey.

The cookies were so moist and delicious, I think I'll use this substituion every time!  Try this in your favorite cookie recipe and you, too, can pretend your cookies are actually super healthy!

Yes, you can make that at home!

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