Credit for my recent obsession goes mostly to Toni, for linking to an article on teff on Facebook. Partial credit also goes to Cafe Rehoboth in San Jose, where we recently ate dinner – the injira bread is also made with teff. I’m pretty adventurous when it comes to grains, but I hadn’t experimented with teff yet. My favorite grains book has a couple of recipes, so I started out with waffles, made with teff flour. You can either use straight teff flour for these, or you can toast the grains and then grind it into a flour in a spice grinder. I used flour. The waffles have a really nice tender, crispy, light texture. But the flavor of the teff is odd for a waffle – kind of grassy. We didn’t hate these, but they were a little weird. The caramelized bananas, though, are fantastic.

• Teff Waffles with Caramelized Bananas (Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, p. 244)