Last Sunday I began the day with a super powered green smoothie. Because we all need a little balance in our lives, I decided this Sunday I would kick off the new week with my flavolicious gluten-free banana easy teff pancakes. Banana pancakes are an all time favourite from when I was young and my family would go on our annual holiday to Jamaica. A breakfast treat would be fried banana fritters with fresh grated coconut. We would be so stuffed afterwards that all we could do the rest of the day was lay about lie sloths on various surfaces – hammocks, beach chairs, rafts, sand…
But alas – I have learned that the food we eat should make us feel alive, rather than put us into a food coma. Banana pancakes remain a weekend treat but I have gone ahead and adjusted them using teff flour, applesauce instead of oil, almond milk, free run eggs and my own ground teff.
Teff is a great wheat alternative and traditionally grown in Ethiopia as a cereal crop where it is ground into flour, fermented for three days then made into injera, a traditional sourdough flat bread. Added bonus, aside from it being a gluten-free grain, is that it is especially high in lysine, the amino acid that is most often deficient in grain foods. Teff is also an excellent source of fiber and iron, and has many times the amount of calcium, potassium and other essential minerals found in an equal amount of other grains.
I have not ventured as far as making the fermented injera, but it is really only a matter of time. For now – I’ll stick with my banana pancakes with a dollop of my homemade strawberry butter and my own freshly grated coconut.
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