Thursday, February 7, 2013

The granola mistake

If you met me, the likelihood is that you wouldn't immediately realize I'm very granola. That is, I mostly only wear natural fibres, I live green as far as I possibly can, and eat organic foods (better yet, bio-dynamic). Years ago my aunt gave me a recipe for homemade granola, and although adapted somewhat, I use it all the time. How it goes is this, I bake the mixture of rolled oats, sunflower seed oil, syrup and honey in the oven, usually in the evening when I'm not busy with writing.

I leave the mixture to cool overnight. In the morning, my husband puts the rest together: raisins, sunflower seeds, chopped nuts and, usually, flax seed. However, he was a bit sleepy the other day and instead of the latter, he added a handful of poppy seeds. These I'd asked him to buy, having the intention of baking a poppy seed cake.

Well, I didn't know he'd made that mistake. After eating breakfast, I felt decidedly weird, a little disoriented, and my head ached. Same thing the next day. When I complained to my husband, he smiled and 'fessed up.

Seems like opium isn't a good thing for me to ingest. But we had this full bottle of granola on our hands, and we like/need to be frugal. What to do? Seeing as my husband wasn't affected in the least, he's offered to finish that lot. And last night, I made myself a new batch. Whew!