Orange Cranberry Granola

One of the reasons we timed our trip to Eden when we did was to coincide with Andy's mum's birthday.  Sure, it was mainly because that was when the biggest gap in teaching and meetings was happening, but the timing was lucky.

For a gift, we brought down some beautiful (if I say so myself) granola.

It was orange-cranberry, with pecans.

It was a bit more work than the usual granola I make for myself, but it makes a lot (so there was lots of leftovers that stayed in Townsville and became my breakfast).

Here's the recipe.

1 orange
6 T. oil
1 1/2 c. fairly wet okara (which of course is the byproduct of soymilk making - if you don't have okara, you could probably use soy yogurt, soy milk, or even tofu blended up with some milk...)

6 cups rolled oats
3/4 c. pecans, roughly broken up
1 1/2 c. other stuff - in this batch, I used rice flakes, shredded coconut, and processed bran sticks
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 packet of dried cranberries (maybe 1 1/2 to 2 cups?)

A few days before you want to make the granola, carefully peel the orange zest from the orange.  Try to avoid getting much white stuff.  Put the peels into a jar, pour the oil over, and cover it tightly and let it sit and get orangey for a week, or less if you're impatient.  But just don't skip this step, since it makes all the difference between meh-granola, and holy shit this is good-granola.  Squeeze your peel-less orange, or eat it and use another one when you need the juice.  I got 3/4 c. of juice from my orange, which is perfect.  You might need more than one orange, or perhaps less.  If you squeeze a few days before you make the granola, freeze the orange juice and just defrost it when needed.

Once your oil smells sufficiently orangey, make your granola.  In a jug or small bowl, combine the okara, orange juice, and oil (you can strain out the zest, or leave them in - we left them in).

In a large bowl, mix up your oats, nuts, other stuff, salt, and brown sugar.  Try to mix until the brown sugar clumps are all pretty well broken up.  Then pour in the wet stuff, and mix it all together really well.  Probably use your hands.  Once all your dry ingredients are no longer dry, mix in the cranberries.

If you have a dehydrator, spread the granola onto the sheets, and dry at 52C(125F) for 4 hours, spinning the trays around every hour.

If you don't, cook it like regular granola -- at 160C(320F), stirring every 15 minutes, for about an hour.

Either way, cook it until it's crunchy.  Then let it cool on the trays before putting it into an airtight container.