run a high altitude camp in Flagstaff. He's a great coach and a little bit of a running geek (no offense Mark) kind of like my husband. Mark is the kind of guy who likes a lot of order in his diet, and every morning he would prepare a dish made out of a chocolaty flour he had transported 4000 miles. "What the h*ll is that, Mark?""Teff"
My husband's culinary palate is more canned black olives, little debbies, and jelly donuts; so I'm always a little surprised when a man not only cooks, but uses an ingredient I don't know.
Turns out that Teff is good stuff.
Olympic and World Marathon Champ Gezahegne Abera in a cool running interview said of it:
“In Ethiopia, every athlete eats teff. We believe our ancient grain helps us train harder than athletes from any other country. That is why we are champions.”
Teff is a powerhouse of nutrition with high levels of many different nutrients: calcium, iron, phosphorus, copper, barium, thiamin. It's also very high in protein and has all 8 essential amino acids.
Dark Mark ordered his Teff in bulk from the internet. At the time, there was no way I was going to order a flour that was $6-10 per lb (regular organic whole wheat is $.89 per lb by contrast). Recently, however, I saw the stuff at Whole Foods and I decided to try it.
I'm sure I completely Americanized the stuff by making a type of brownie with lots of sweet, but I admit, I'm kind of hooked now. Below are two "teff" recipes that I like. One is more cake like, the other is a cookie listed on the bag of flour.
Bob's Red Mill Teff Peanut Butter Cookies
Breakfast Gingerbread Teff Bars
1cup teff
1/2cup whole wheat flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp baking soda
dash of salt
1tsp each spices: cinnamon, ginger and/or 1/2tsp cloves
1tsp vanilla
1/2 + cups of molasses or other sweetener
1/2 cup vegetable oil (probably a faux pas,but I use light olive oil)
2 eggs or 4 egg whites or a combo of the two
Mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients...mix together, spread out to about brownie height in a small baking dish. Cook at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until spongy.
2 comments:
Geek?!?! I resemble that remark!! What about that dog of yours--now there's a geek.
I'll be eating some teff tonight, and trying that cookie recipe in the near future as well.
You can get about 25 oz. of Teff right now at Ocean State Job Lot for $4.99. I don't know if that's a good price or not, but it's certainly convenient if you have that store anywhere near you.
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