Gluten-Free Dairy Free Teff Crepes

Amaranth and Teff Make a High Protein and Nutritious Crepe

Teff as a plant is an interesting grain and has a long history of use, primarily in Ethiopia. Teff can be grown in a large variety of climates and is disease resistant. It would be an excellent grain to utilize for farming when Global Warming begins to affect the growth of other cereal crops. The same could be said for Amaranth. Amaranth is a very hardy plant and after established can survive with very little water in arid climates. Amaranth can grow in a wide variety of climates, including high elevations because of it’s unique metabolic abilities to use carbon dioxide at lower pressures.

These gluten and dairy free crepes have the added benefit of using two old world grains, teff and amaranth flour. These grains are cool because they are all non-GMO. They are richer in flavor and similar to what a whole grain crepe would taste like. Unlike a white rice flour, teff and amaranth flour have the bran included which includes many B vitamins such as Thiamine and Riboflavin. Teff actually has about 1/3 of your Vitamin B6 (Pyroxidine) in 1/2 cup. Pyroxidine is important for many metabolic processes in the body in the nervous system, gastrointestinal system, immune system, and muscular system. Brown rice flour is in these crepes along with garbanzo flour, tapioca flour, and sorghum flour, which combined together make a much more balanced food in terms of complementary amino acids. Even if you are not gluten-free, these dairy free and gluten-free crepes will provide more nutrients and health to your body.

Teff also has 13% of your Calcium RDA. It has Vitamin C and a huge amount of Magnesium (46% RDA) which is needed for the muscular skeletal system and other processes. Like amaranth it is high in fiber and teff has around a quarter of your daily needs for protein, all in 1/2 cup. This is one reason you will see Teff in many baked goods recipes. Unlike other grains that affect your blood sugar negatively and cause weight gain and disease, Teff’s specific nutritional composition help regulate insulin and glucose levels. You can order Teff online in large quantities such as a 5 to 50 lb bag to make the cost of this luxury grain part of your regular diet. Even if you are not gluten-free these many reasons should encourage you to substitute some Teff flour into your baked goods. It’s flavor is light and sweet and in fermented breads adds a savory sour element.

Dairy Free or Using Dairy depends on if you are cooking for an adult or a very young child.

This recipe calls for coconut milk thinned with water to a dairy consistency to make these dairy free crepes. I have been using leftover bottle goat milk instead of trying to reheat it after giving it to my unweaned child… It is a more sustainable way to consume so nothing goes to waste. But I prefer for myself to make it dairy free and below is my original recipe. This recipe does not have water like traditional crepes and the resultant crepes are thicker and spongier than most pasty white, nutritionally devoid, crepes. This is a unique bakery product that is simply delicious. Amaranth and teff have a higher moisture content than other grains so removing the water makes a more functional batter. These are very flexible just like a crepe but because of their increased thickness work excellent for filling with anything from the traditional fruit compote to sandwich fillings to make a savory wrap. I use Bob’s Red MIll flour to make my crepes as I find their brand makes consistent products with good flavor.

Amaranth Teff Crepes

1/3 c amaranth flour
1/3 c GF flour blend
1/3 c teff flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1/8 t guar gum
1c coconut milk (fresh, or dilute in a ratio of 1:1 with water for canned coconut milk)

1. The best way to make this batter is in the blender. Blend the wet ingredients then layer in the dry ingredients in the order listed. Then blend well.
2. Or if you are doing by hand: Whip the eggs real quick. Add milks. Stir in the flour, salt, and soda rapidly to prevent clumping.
3. You can premix the dry ingredients, or you can get away with not doing this by sprinkling the baking soda and salt on top, and mixing quickly after each go.
4. When cured, pour into super hot shiny coconut oil that you have not let smoke. If it smokes pour it out and wipe the pan, but do not use water to wash. This actually is a method to prevent sticking to a pan such as copper or stainless steel.

It would be amazing to find a scientific paper titled “Teff Consumption in the Minimum Quantity of 1 Cup per Week Over Ten Years Leads to Decreased Insulin Sensitivity, Improved Post-Prandial Response,” or “Teff consumption of 1/4 c per day over 1 year Improves Glycogen Storage Rates and Rate of Muscle Repair after Load Bearing Exercise,” or “Regular Teff Consumption in place of Wheat, combined with a Plant Based Diet over a 5 year Period in People with Food Sensitivities and Fibromyalgia reduces Average Daily Pain Threshold Scores and leads to Significantly Reduced Intake of Histamine Blockers.” Maybe that will be possible ten years from now when the world moves into a period of searching for best scientific solutions rather than best scientific financial solutions.

But for now we can extrapolate from the nutrients in Teff and knowing that a mixed vegetarian diet regulates food intake hormones in a way that is more positive when the food sources are high in a variety of amino acids and contain Mangenese which is important for energy metabolism. When whole grain foods that are high in protein replace foods such as wheat, insulin sensitivity will improve. Post prandial response is how much your blood sugar increases in response to consuming a meal. If you are fat, skinny fat, or diabetic it all happens the same way. When you eat a high simple carbohydrate meal, even if it is a smoothie of bananas, a dash of kale and dates, your blood sugar quickly spikes. This causes your body to release insulin which runs around opening the cell doors in the body so the cells allow the sugar floating around in the blood to go into the cells. This is super important because sugar floating around in the bloodstream, outside of cells, is damaging and makes glycosylated end products which hurt cells and the blood vessels, often irreparably. But over time, as you eat pasta meal after muffin after cookie, after banana and date smoothie, the body experiences more and more insulin. Cells become attenuated. This is like the first time you see a police officer with a machine gun on the street. In the beginning you react strongly as you have an urge to run for cover from the flashbacks of a past life when police officers pointed machine guns at you and your baby when you were minding your business nursing under a tree. But the more often you see police patroling the streets with machine guns, the less your nervous system responds. This is called attenuation and it happens in all kinds of biological processes, including those behind addiction to social media. After years of eating too many simple carbohydrates, such as wheat with added sugars, your body releases too much insulin and the cells are like, “oh, you again, really you are coming around too often and we just can’t use that much sugar.” but then the blood is like “OMG, help, all these glycosylated end products from too much sugar (glucose) are scratching me all up and it is like a briar patch over here, the scar tissue is getting bad.” So then the liver sees the pain of the blood vessels so it releases even more and more insulin because the liver is like a patriarchy and if the cells don’t do what it wants it will try to force them to do so. And then the process goes in an ever widening feedback loop as the cells resist insulin the more they see insulin in response to high glucose meals.

Wheat is generally considered to be pro-inflammatory. Lowering your inflammation over time by consuming a non-GMO whole grain that is high in branched chain amino acids can improve muscle recovery as well as reduce histamine responses. The branched chain amino acids are isoleucine, leucine, and valine and you would get a good amount if you ate an avocado toast on this Gluten-Free Seed Bread made with teff or these crepes filled with veggies and avocado. 1/2 cup of Teff contains 19% DRI of Thiamine and wheat contains 5%. Thiamine is a crucial part of carbohydrate metabolism and helps with muscle repair and recovery. Remember it is the long term monthly changes in food intake that result in lasting changes in the body. Fibromyalgia is generally linked with fatigue and muscle pain, usually with an etiology of a physical or chemical/biological injury. Improving metabolism function and muscle repair as well as improving redox status are the first steps to ameliorating this crippling disease. This is a great link if you are interested in the details of Thiamine biochemistry. Teff is higher in all the B vitamins than wheat and this link compares the nutrition of bread flour and teff. I did whole teff because the teff flour was missing nutrient information, but whole teff should be slightly lower in nutrients than teff flour per equivalent volume because of the air space between the grains.

Perfect filling for Teff Crepes:

Strawberry Chia Compote

The perfect complement to Teff Crepes

11.8 oz frozen strawberries
2.8 oz water
2 T vanilla
1 t lime juice
2 t chia seeds

Simmer all the ingredients except for the chia seeds for 45 minutes on very low heat. Add the chia seeds and mix well. Turn off the heat and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes in order to thicken. You can easily guesstimate the quantities in this recipe or change them around a bit. Simply reduce the mixture by half on the stove top, then add the chia seeds at the end of cooking.