Hallo again friends! Sending you some magical vibes and sunshine on this wistful grey Sunday. This weekend has been all about music and the quarterly Moon Masquerade my bandmate Anna B + my husband Logan organize!

And it went off smashingly on Saturday night!

Larkspur (my band) opened and our good friends Lobo Marino headlined. We're ethereal trance-folk. Lobo is punk-folk with a world influence. And we had a new DJ come in who spun some indie dance music. We had mask making, face painting, dranks, and some volunteers made vegan coconut chai, wild birch chaga tea and chocolate avocado truffles!!!

YEAH IT WAS DREAMY.

We also had Appalachian Voices come out, and they got 10% of the door (woo!).

It's so amazing to witness the community in Charlottesville show up and get down and dance so freely and zealously. It's definitely a rare thing, having a crew that's wild and loyal and open-hearted like this. And who'll dress up in everything from full length period gowns to barely-there woodland fairy costumes outfitted with LED lights.

ANYWAY I'm dead tired today because I was up until three last night catching up with some of the artists, who I haven't seen in a long time. I'm trying to get my butt in gear to get the house clean and sparkly so the rest of the week can float along gracefully.

But I might just make more tahini cardamom teff porridge as a snack then read and do some yoga and call it a day.

Some of you guys probably remember my chai teff porridge. It's a personal favorite -- I make it at least once a week. But it's also one of my most popular recipes. I probably get more love about that recipe than any other on the blog!

Teff porridge only takes 5 minutes to make. It's super smooth, creamy, protein-, iron-, and calcium-rich. And it acts a bit like an appetite-suppresant, incidentally. So I don't feel snacky in between meals when I start my day with it.

This particular recipe is only 6 ingredients (not including water), made with tahini and cardamom.

I bought a couple of huge hunks of cardamom halva from Seed + Mill at Chelsea Market in Manhattan in December. They go hard on the cardamom in their halva. It's intense. I'm pretty sure they mill whole cardamom seeds into the sesame paste. I absolutely love it.

So, since then I've been keen on the combination.

Um, I mean... I put it in everything.

It just makes all food taste like rainbows. It's like a je ne sais quoi factor.

So this tahini cardamom teff porridge is sweet, subtle and rich without being overwhelming. It's my go-to nourishing, grounding breakfast right now.

You'll need teff flour (not whole teff grains). Ivory or brown teff both work. I get mine from Bob's Red Mill and it's available at Whole Foods and a lot of specialty / organic grocers. My mom swears by Maskal Teff which she buys in bulk online.

And, being totally honest, I actually dreamed up this tahini cardamom teff porridge because I really wanted to swirl some egregiously expensive black raspberry jam on into it. So, JAM SWIRLING HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Regardless of whether said jam is fancy. :)

Tahini Cardamom Teff Porridge

Created by Renee on January 13, 2017

Only 6 ingredients and 5 minutes to perfectly smooth, creamy, protein-packed breakfast perfection!

• Cook Time: 5m
•  
• Total Time: 5m

• Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup coconut cream (scooped from the top of a chilled can of full fat coconut milk)
• 1/4 cup smooth sesame tahini
• 1/8 cup coconut sugar + more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• pinch sea salt
• 1/2 cup teff flour
• to serve (optional): more tahini, jam, sesame seeds, raspberries

Instructions

1. Add the water, coconut cream, tahini, coconut sugar, cardamom and salt to a small sauce pot and set over medium heat.
2. Bring to a simmer then lower the heat. Sift in the teff a little bit at a time, stirring as you go. Cut off the heat when the porridge starts to thicken (it should coat the back of a spoon thickly, like a custard).
3. To get a perfectly smooth texture, use an immersion blender directly in the pot of porridge and blend until creamy. OR add the teff to a high powered blender and blitz until smooth (you might need a couple of tablespoons more liquid to get the blender going).
4. Taste and adjust sweetness and spices to your liking. Serve with more tahini drizzled over top, a dallop of your favorite jam (black raspberry is my current obsession), sesame seeds and fresh raspberries (or any other berries you like!).