Clustered Quinoa Granola (Kanrocksas)

Kanrocksas rocked!

For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a music festival similar to Lollapalooza.  This is the first year and it took place at the Kansas Speedway, which is a "state-of-the-art outdoor event facility that  hosts approximately 200 events a year".

Kellen and I walked in not really knowing what to expect.  We drove up to the campground and saw everyone setting up tents and realized that we came a litttllleee unprepared.  All we had was my Ford Focus (with little baby seats) and a couple of sleeping bags.  A) There was no way we could sleep comfortably inside the car because B) It was way too hot (105 degrees) to be sleeping in a car with no air circulation and C) I couldn't keep my car running all night. 

Buuttt, we weren't going to let that get us down, so we wandered into the Speedway to check out the bands. We ended up watching 1) Fitz and the Tantrums (who we had never heard of before, but they did a great job!), 2) D12 (Kellen's choice ;)), 3) Jack's Mannequin (did a great job), 4) Kid Cudi (I don't even like rap, but he did awesome and we got super close 'seats'), 5) a little bit of Bassnectar (also a great performance), and last but not least on Friday, Eminem (super, super packed, a little overrated, but he put on a great show and the audience was really drunk pumped!)  I was a little sad because we were supposed to watch the Flaming Lips on the main stage right before Eminem, but apparently the schedule changed and they got moved to a different stage.  By the time we realized that, we were so wedged into the Eminem audience that there's no way we would've been able to get out.

That night, we ended up being babies and sleeping at a friends house who lives close by.  (Thank you, Teresa!)  We got really lucky!

The next day, Saturday, we came a little more prepared... still no tent, but we knew to bring bigger water bottles!  Friday, we went through 6 water bottles and were still dying of thirst.  So, armed with 1 liter water bottles, we headed in for day 2 where we watched 1) OK Go (pretty awesome... Damian, the lead singer, sang in the middle of the crowd and also had someone from the audience come on stage and play his guitar), 2) Grace Potter and the Nocturnals (they did a fantastic job...Kellen and I both really enjoyed her performance), 3) Flogging Molly (I love Flogging Molly and they got the crowd so amped up... it was great!), 4) a little bit of Tinie Tempah (he was late, but what we watched of him was pretty good), 5) The Black Keys (awesome job), 6) Muse (it was really packed so we ended up sitting on the side, but it was a really good performance).

Overall we had an awesome, sweaty, fun, exciting weekend!

Here are a few videos I took (excuse the quality, they're from my phone):

And to top it all off, I made some quinoa granola that I've been dying to make!! It was pretty good! I ate it today as cereal and it gave the milk a really great flavor. Plus, the recipe is so easily adaptable that you can make it taste however you want.

Quinoa Granola
adapted from: Hungry Hungry Hippie

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole rolled oats 
• 1/3 cup quinoa (I used 1/6 cup each of of red and regular quinoa)
• 1/4 cup flax seed
• 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup dried Blueberry Craisins --my fav!
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup cereal of choice (I used Frosted Wheat)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

Directions:

1. In large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients (first 4 listed).

2. Chop nuts and add to the bowl along with seeds and coconut.
3. Mix well.
4. Add liquids (melted coconut oil and maple syrup).
5. Mix it all together.
6. Spread onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
7. Bake for 40 minutes at 30 degrees.
8. Let it cool and then break apart (you don’t need to actually break it, it crumbles pretty easily if you just brings the ends of the parchment paper together).