I put together a new salad featuring edamame this week in preparation for Bean 2 Blog, a super fun blogging event at P. Allen Smith‘s Moss Mountain Farm, hosted by P. Allen Smith and The Arkansas Soybean Promotional Board.

Edamame makes a regular appearance on our table, as a dinner side or an afternoon snack.  The kids love it and so do I, so I am excited that my state is growing more of this great crop.

Edamame is basically a common soybean, but it is harvested at the peak of ripening right before it reaches the hardening that makes it a dry bean.

We learned at Bean 2 Blog that our nation’s first plant dedicated to the receiving, processing, packaging and shipping of edamame was built right here in Arkansas last year. The plant in Mulberry is also directly helping Arkansas farmers to grow more edamame by contracting with farmers to plant acres (900 in 2012) of this soybean variety.

All the bloggers got to bring edamame seeds home that have been researched and produced right here in Arkansas.  The soybean plants that make edamame are actually different from the soybeans that are grown for other uses.  Edamame plants are not genetically modified and many of them are grown organically.

I am totally going to take my seeds to Sandy and Michael’s land to plant.

Colorful Summer Salad with Peppers and Edamame

This salad is a bright, colorful cornucopia of summer.  Different colored peppers and purple onions give it stripes of color, but then the tomatoes and edamame make it pop.

Happy day!  A beautiful salad that tastes delicious and is good for you!  High in protein, fiber and iron, edamame is a super legume.

{Printable Recipe}

Ingredients

8 ounces spring mix
1/2 cup shelled edamame
1 cup green beans, blanched and chopped
1/4 cup sliced red onion (about half of a small red onion)
1 cup sliced peppers (any mix of colors)
1 yellow squash, thinly sliced
2-4 tomatoes, sliced
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped

Dressing

1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried basil or 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

Arrange all ingredients on a platter or in a large bowl.  Mix dressing with a whisk or blender.  Pour over salad just before serving.

Enjoy!

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When I was out in the garden last week, I tried some homemade insect repellent that my friend, Sandy, had made.  I loved the way it smelled, so I asked her for the recipe and made some for my family.

Turns out, it is super easy to make your own all natural homemade insect repellent!  Try it!

Sandy used olive oil in hers, but I used soy oil because I am taking my bottle with me to learn about soybeans today!  Also, I think the soy oil has a longer shelf life.

Homemade Insect Repellent

{Printable Version}

1 cup water, boiled then cooled

1 cup witch hazel

1 teaspoon soy oil

10-20 drops of essential oils

I used tea tree and lavender, but rosemary or citronella oil would also be great bug deterrents.

Mix all the ingredients in a measuring cup with a spout and pour into spray bottles.  Gently shake before using.  Spray freely and enjoy being outside!

PS. I am at #Bean2Blog today at P. Allen Smith’s Farm.  You can keep up with the Moss Mountain Farm happenings today on Twitter by following the hashtag.  More uses for soy products and soy recipes forthcoming!!

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photo by Mark Fonville

Last week we played hooky one day to spend some time in one of the most idyllic settings in Arkansas, P. Allen Smith’s Moss Mountain Farm.

The kids were excited because they had heard me talk all about the farm after I went to Bean 2 Blog out there last spring.

It was a very busy day on the farm because P. Allen Smith and his talented team of producers, assistants, designers, photographers, publicists and camera folk were all working on many projects at once.

Photo shoots, recipe segments, gardening pieces, radio recordings and dinner plans were happening all over the farm. As soon as one project would wrap up, another would be starting somewhere else and still another getting ready to be up next.

There was so much was going on that it kind of made my head spin, but I also felt really honored to get to be there for it.

My entire family got to be a part of some photo shoots for P. Allen Smith’s eMagazine. For one shoot, we played lawn games in a side yard surrounded by gorgeous pink roses. (How long has it been since you played croquet?)

Next we had an ice cream party underneath the 350 year old oak in front of the house. Our kids got to eat as much ice cream and cookies as they wanted at ten in the morning.

Simon was all, Oh, you need me to eat another cookie? No problem, sir!

In between set ups, we got to tour the gardens and see all the farm animals. Oh, the chickens! P. Allen Smith really does have the most beautiful chickens in the world.

Then we were served lunch on the lawn before Taido and the kids headed home and I got to stay.

After lunch, I made three salad recipes from this blog. I made the first one inside the house with Mary Ellen, who was my contact for the day and a familiar face after meeting her last year at Bean 2 Blog.

I was timid at first about actually using the amazing kitchen, but soon, I was digging around in drawers and cabinets, finding what I needed to make the Crunchy Church Picnic Salad. I got in my little corner and chopped my veggies as different people came and went. At one point I even traipsed down the road to the vegetable garden to get the basil for my salad. As I walked the little farm lane, I thought, I could get used to this!

The other two recipes (Sesame Kale Salad and Barbeque Chicken Salad) were filmed as I put them together with Allen in the summer kitchen, a little bit of paradise for this foodie.

The summer kitchen is out behind the main house and I tried hard not to covet, but you enter through sliding French doors to a view of shelves filled with bright orange Le Creuset pots and cookware. Oh my heart.

I loved being in this space and getting to visit with the people who are behind all the content that P. Allen Smith produces. They are an incredibly gifted group of individuals, as was everyone I met during my time at the farm.

After the TV segments, we did a radio interview. That’s a lot of talking and being in front of people for this introvert, friends. But Allen, for whom this was just a normal day at the office, was very at ease and helped me find my way through the taping.

I left feeling a little anxious about how it would all turn out, so it made me happy when the photographer who took most of our pictures, Mark Fonville, sent me the photo above of our family in this beautiful setting.

We felt very grateful to be asked to be even a small part of the swirling motion of activity that happens out at Moss Mountain Farm.

Be sure and subscribe to the eMagazine, so you won’t miss the Chinos with P. Allen Smith!

And stay tuned for more farm adventures with P. Allen Smith, because I am heading back out to the farm on Tuesday for Bean 2 Blog 2013 to learn more about farming and soybeans!

The post Chinos to Moss Mountain Farm appeared first on Chino House.

Friends, are you Google Reader Grieving like me?

Do you read Chino House and your other favorite blogs via Google Reader?  If not, well, here’s a great live music video from Matisyahu, a Jewish rapper we are currently obsessed with at the Chino House.  You can watch it and check out on the rest of this post.

Google Reader changed my life many years ago when I realized that you could read hundreds of blogs at one time instead having to go and find each one individually.

So, since Google Reader announced that they are shutting down in the near future, I have been trying to migrate my feeds to a new home.

After trying a few, I have settled on Feedly.  It was very simple to import all my feeds from Google Reader.  So many folks are doing that right now that they have the steps all set up for you as soon as you get a Feedly account.

I really like the way it looks like a magazine layout, and it seems easier to read on my phone than Google Reader is.  However, I found that I had to seriously reorganize all my blogs in Feedly, because I had let my Google Reader fill up with lots of blogs that I don’t always read.  In the Google Reader layout, it was super easy to just sort through and read the ones I was most interested in, while in Feedly, I find that it is a little more cumbersome to skip to my favorites.

Spring Clean Your Reader

So I did a little Spring Cleaning of my blogs, and now I just have my very favorites in the top few categories.  I even renamed my categories to help find what I am looking for quickly.  I did all this spring cleaning in the Feedly Web Interface from my computer, but the results show up on my phone.

My New Categories:

Blogs that make me HAPPY whenever they post.

Blogs that INSPIRE me.

Blogs that offer HELPful information.

TRAVEL blogs.

I still kept my other categories below these: cooking, crafting, home, design, money-saving and MANY others.  That way if I am looking for lots of new inspiration in one of those areas I can check that folder, but I’m not going to the cooking folder JUST to see if Smitten Kitchen or 101 Cookbooks has a new recipe.  Those are my very favorites, so I put them in HAPPY.  They also get to stay in the cooking category.

I know that is kind of random, but I am finding that it is working great for me.

Following Chino House

I really like the way Chino House appears in Feedly! If you get a Feedly App or the Feedly Web Interface, I would feel so privileged if you added Chino House to your blog list!

Or if you prefer, you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

Another great way to keep up with what’s happening on the Chino House is to LIKE our page on Facebook.  Then links to new posts will show up in your Facebook feed.

Or you could always follow me on Twitter, where I tweet about new posts.

The best way to never miss a post is to subscribe to the Chino House via email.  I feel super honored when you let me all the way into your inbox! It’s almost like being invited to dinner!

What’s your favorite way to keep up with blogs and websites you love?  If you have a great system, I would LOVE to hear about it!

The post Spring Clean Your Reader appeared first on Chino House.

Getting Back To Your Roots

I can feel my blood pressure dropping as I drive out to my friend’s house in the country. I take the exit and head north on an old highway surrounded by fields of yellow wildflowers and cardboard signs for fresh picked strawberries.

Sandy, along with her husband Michael, live in a small house on five acres, and they come as close to anyone I know to living off of the land.

They raise chickens, ducks, quail, honeybees, rabbits and their newest project is sheep.  They have been getting their land ready to bring in sheep this spring, and the kids can hardly wait.

I had told Sandy that I would do my share of work in her vegetable garden this year in exchange for some produce, so one afternoon last week Sandy called me to tell that it was time to come on out. Michael had tilled the ground, and now we were trying to beat the rain that was coming in.

So after I got my kids off to school, I headed out.  I turned down the gravel lane to their house and smiled when I saw Sandy and Michael together in their garden getting ready.

Everything on their land seems perfectly situated.  It is a little piece of paradise to me.

Michael had run lines of string to follow, because he likes his garden planted in neat rows.  He joked with us about keeping our lines straight, and when we ran some string for the next row ourselves, he had to come and fix it.

Sandy handed me an old coffee container full of seeds.  I love how they don’t waste anything out here on the farm.  Everything serves multiple purposes.

We dug right in, putting seeds in the ground.  Rows and rows of purple hull peas into tiny little holes we poked with our fingers.

It never ceases to amaze me that a plant grows up out of the ground from a tiny seed.

I love how planting is a faith journey.  You put your little seeds in the ground. Then you wait and hope, and soon something new grows.

After the purple hull peas, we planted okra.  Okra seeds are so tiny that I kept accidentally dropping more than one in a hole.  I struggled to hold on to my little handfuls of okra seed while we put in four rows of okra.  Sandy wanted to plant mostly okra and purple hull peas, so that she can let her neighbors come and pick.  She’s going to put up a little honest box where you can leave some money when you pick vegetables from the garden.

She saved some room though for zucchini and yellow squash hills.  She made mounds along the rows and I came behind her with four seeds for each pile of dirt.

From the garden you can see Michael and Sandy’s Pavilion.  Larger than their house, the pavilion is a gathering place for family and friends.  Our sweet friend, Beth and her mother came out and brought us lunch while we were planting, so we took a break to sit in the shade of the pavilion on porch swings and around a table.

Our yummy lunch came from the Fried Pie Shop in Jacksonville.  I had a pimento cheese sandwich and a fried peach pie, both of which came wrapped in red checkered paper.  We washed it all down with Sandy’s sweet tea.  And Oh. My. Goodness.  It was so amazing.  And so lovely.

If you’ve never had a fried pie, well, you should rectify that immediately.

I was so full I wanted to sit all afternoon in the pavilion, but soon it was time to say goodbye and get back to work.

We finished planting in the late afternoon, so Michael went ahead and tilled up some more ground for Sandy’s famous sunflowers.  She brings them to town in huge bundles and makes us all smile.

She and I ran to the Farm Co-op for farm seed.

I had never seen seed sold in bulk bins like they had at the Farm Co-op.

When we got back to the farm with our seeds, Sarabeth was arriving with all the kids from school.  Simon was so happy to get to come to Miss Sandy’s house.  He loves it even more than me.  He shot out of the car and headed to the chickens.  He found two eggs to bring in the house and then he was ready for fishing.

Sarabeth and I were amazed at how the kids stayed down at the pond and fished until it got so dark that they couldn’t see anymore.

It’s like when you’re out at Michael and Sandy’s, the rest of the world and all its troubles sort of washes away.  And for a few minutes, you can just be a kid.

Sandy scattered her sunflower seed and fixed up some snacks for the kids.  Michael built a fire in the pavilion and the kids made s’mores while we sat around visiting.  It was a perfect end to a perfect day.

We drove back to town and fell asleep to the sound of rain beginning to fall.  Perfect timing.  I was so happy that it had rained all night that I didn’t even mind too much that I was so tired the next morning from my day in the field.

I LOVE that our family gets to have a glimpse of farm life through this sweet family.  I was reminded this week of something I heard farmer Jim Carroll say at Bean 2 Blog last year.  He said that if you look back to your roots far enough, you will find farming in your family.  Most all of us have descended from someone who has tended the land for food.

Understanding and experiencing food growing is such a beautiful part of preparing great food for my family, and I want my kids to pick up on that somewhere along the way.  I hope they will each tend a little piece of dirt at some point in their lives, and be amazed when new life grows.

A special thank you to Michael and Sandy for letting us share your life on the land!

And to Beth for bringing us sustenance and great company!

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We have wanted to go to the St. Louis Zoo for a while now, but we planned our activities in the car while we drove, knowing it was probably going to rain all day.  So we had to skip the zoo, but we still had a great day.  Here’s what we did.

1. We got up early and drive straight to the St. Louis Arch. We LOVED walking through the Riverfront Park, even in the rain.

This well designed park seems like the perfect place to spend an afternoon.  The dogwoods were especially gorgeous, and they surround ponds full of ducks and geese.  The walkway runs along the great Mississippi River on both sides of the Gateway Arch.

2. The Arch wasn’t open yet so we went across the street to the Old Courthouse.

The kids thoroughly explored this building.  The stairs go all the way up to great views of the dome, which is painted with portraits of presidents.  There’s also an exhibit on the history of St. Louis, as well as a couple of films.

We watched one about St. Louis’ role in the Civil War.  Union soldiers were fighting a battle with troops from Arkansas.  Simon was rooting for Arkansas to win until I explained that actually, Arkansas fought on the wrong side of that war.  He was aghast to learn that his home state had fought to keep slavery and later told Taido that he didn’t like Arkansas anymore.

3. After the Courthouse, we went back to The Gateway Arch.

I had been up in the Arch before so I volunteered to stay with Simon, who did NOT want to go up that high, while Taido and the big kids went up in it.  Mary Polly did not enjoy it (scary!), but Taido and Ben thought it was super cool.  They took lots of great pictures from way high up!  There are some great exhibits in the visitor center at the bottom of the Arch, so Simon and I explored those.  We picked up a scavenger hunt sheet for jr. rangers and found everything on the page.

4. Next up, Trader Joe’s.

We don’t have one in Little Rock. So you understand.

We also picked up lunch here, and the kids picked out treats to take home.

5. Next, there was the City Museum.

We have heard about this museum from several friends, so we were excited to explore this crazy place.  It is really a giant playground made of all kinds of recycled materials from old buildings.  Impressive tunnels run throughout the building, which is several floors high.  Because of the rain and some renovations, the outside slides and roof were closed, so we only explored the inside.  Mary Polly and Ben were game for going all through the tunnels and caves, but Simon mostly stuck to the tables and tables of art supplies.  We also enjoyed the mini circus and another room full of wooden ramps.

Side note: I probably would not go back to this museum on a rainy Saturday, because the tunnels were super crowded. However, I still climbed about one million stairs though to do the 10 story slide, almost all in the dark. Crazytown!

6. My family obliged my desire to see the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

This cathedral boasts the largest mosaic installation in the world.  So beautiful! Inside and out.

7. Last, but not least, we stopped for the FREE tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.

We stopped and did this just because it was on so many lists of things to do in St. Louis and because it was free!  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  The whole process of how beer is made and aged was very fascinating to me.  The kids were not as enthralled as me, but they enjoyed seeing the Clydesdales, riding the tour trolley and getting free sodas at the end.  Adults get to choose two beers from twelve different varieties.  I loved trying one that was made with Honeycrisp apples! Yum.

We had a great rainy day in St. Louis, and now we are excited to go back and visit in the sunshine!  What’s on your list of great things to do in this fun town?

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We are about halfway through Month 4 of this crazy little mutiny against excess, as Jen Hatmaker calls it in her book.

A group of us started strong in February eating only seven foods for one month. (really, really hard)

Then we wore seven items of clothing in March. (easy peasy)

Then in April we tried to give away seven things a day. Some gals did great. Others of us procrastinated.  I am still going through my things and giving them away here in Month 4, because I didn’t finish in April.

But that’s ok because this month is giving up seven forms of media, or as I like to call it, Radio Silence.

And friends, I have had WAY more time to clean out closets.

All those minutes of checking email, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, my blog, email again, Instagram again, my blog again, looking up how much plane tickets are to Paris, seeing how much a book costs that someone told mentioned, checking cruise deals, wondering what’s playing at the dollar theater…oh and checking my email again, checking Instagram again.  On and on and on.

Those minutes add up to precious hours of my life, and now I have been able to do really important things like memorize the words to my new favorite song (I did not give up music) and play Nertz 15 times a day with Simon.  And Headbands.  We’ve played a lot of rounds of Headbands, which is a really fun game until SOMEONE memorizes all the cards. (I’m looking at you, Ben Chino.)

Seriously, though, in addition to finally getting around to cleaning out the closets, I have made room in my life for a couple of things that I’ve been saying for YEARS I wanted to do.  It turns out that I just needed a little (or a lot) more space to do the things I have always meant to do.

I know people say that you make time for what’s important to you.

They say we all have only 24 hours in a day.

And those are true statements.  So in that case, reading is really important to me.  And laundry.  And eating.  People, I always make time for eating.

But then there are those activities that sit in the non-urgent box.  The ones I only hope I will do.  Sometimes I even say I will do them, but then all of a sudden, making dinner is way more important.

Reclaiming the crevasses of my life, the ten minutes I check email or Instagram, for something else has turned into larger chunks of time set aside for other parts of the day.  And with those chunks I am writing.  I am memorizing.  And oh my goodness, I am even exercising.

I am finding that sometimes I am downright giddy about having these new blocks of time.  It is starting to stay really light in the evenings and I know we aren’t going to all settle in for a movie, so instead we go for a walk.  Or I will fix a drink and sit down with my notebook.

And I love it.  Really, I do.  I feel so productive that I really don’t want to go back.

But I do miss you on Instagram.

Oh, PS!  It is Ten Dollar Tuesday.  And THIS Saturday, I will be Walking for the Waiting with my Seven group of gals!  We are still raising money for this walk for orphans in Arkansas this week, so that’s where it’s going this week!  We’d love to have you join us!

The post Month 4: Radio Silence {Seven} appeared first on Chino House.

A few weeks ago, we took advantage of a school break to go Spring Camping in Missouri.

It rained for a lot of the time we were gone, but I still loved getting away.  The spring rain has made the flowers and trees sparkle with color this year, and it always makes my heart happy to get out and see all those shades of green.

Plus, cold, rainy mornings are a good excuse to enjoy the view from your sleeping bag for a little longer.

We had enough breaks in the rain to get out and hike a bit.

Simon and Ben got lots of time in on their bikes, riding the loops in the campground at St. Francois State Park.

Most of the Missouri State Parks I’ve been to have playgrounds.

We spent one of our mornings exploring Johnson Shut Ins State Park.  Taido is going to take a group camping there this summer, so we went to check it out.

Simon and I have been there before with my dad and sister, and it was just as gorgeous as I remembered!

The shut-ins are these rocks where water gets trapped in all these different little pools.  The kids immediately started climbing on and around them, even though it was still kind of rainy.  They didn’t even care that they were getting all muddy and wet. I do love that about camping.

There’s a great new visitors’ center at Johnson Shut-Ins.  We spent a while watching the films and reading all about how the landscape in this area was formed.

Explorers.

Everywhere we went, I was ooh and ahhing over the wildflowers.  The wild dogwoods are blooming and the fields of yellow were everywhere.  So pretty!

Back at camp, we escaped the rain under our tarp with books and games.  We wished for the sun to shine, but I finished an entire book and we had lots of time for relaxing with each other.

We also spent one rainy day in St. Louis since St. Francois State Park is just an hour south of the city.

All in all, it was a great getaway.  And now that we have our camping gear all cleaned up from the mud, I am ready to go again!

We forgot our cards so we picked up four new decks for Nertz, which all my kids love to play.  I grew up playing Spades and Hearts though, so I’m ready to teach my kids those.   What card games do you play in the rain?

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It’s an exciting season at the Chino House, friends.

We’ve had a lot going on, so I thought I would do a little re-cap, plus let you know what’s in the pipeline for the rest of this month.

We made a Family Cycling Video. Have you seen it!

KATV – Breaking News, Weather and Razorback Sports

Last week, I got to make a Blackberry Peach Cobbler on TV! And I won a year’s supply of Yarnell’s Ice Cream!

I helped Sarabeth have a FREE Garage Sale where we raised over $750 for Kenya Relief and Walk For The Waiting. (We are TOTALLY doing this again on June 1st!)

We are enjoying Radio Silence at our house, so we had a Front Porch Picnic.

Also, I got to spend a day this week working on one of my favorite pieces of Arkansas Farmland. I can’t wait to tell you about that, just as soon as my legs stop hurting! Farming is hard work, y’all!

More fun coming:

Next week, the entire Chino Family will be heading out to Moss Mountain Farm for a Garden Party with P. Allen Smith. Then I get to go back again a week later for Bean 2 Blog! This event was probably my favorite thing I got to do as a blogger last year, so I can’t wait to go back again!

On May 30, I’m taking my sweet mama to Northwest Arkansas for Listen To Your Mother, (starring some friends of mine!) plus we’re going to visit Crystal Bridges!

Also, our family has some crazy news! I am hoping to share all about it with you next week, but for now, I’ll just say that today we are renewing our kids’ passports.  They expired last month. Remember when we got them so we could drive our camper to Canada to go camping for the entire summer? That was five years ago, so it’s time for new ones.

Happy Weekend, Friends! I hope you have something fun planned in May!

The post In The Pipeline appeared first on Chino House.

It is starting to get hot enough outside that you need a good standby recipe for cole slaw.

This recipe is part Ina Garten and part Rhonda Eubanks, my dear friend and catering buddy.

Rhonda and I love to cook together!  We have a great rhythm in the kitchen, and we freely alter each others’ recipes. She makes a slaw with bacon and blue cheese that I love.  The combination is brilliant.  However, she makes hers with bottled dressing and cole slaw mix, so I changed it up a little to have a homemade dressing and freshly chopped cabbage and carrots.  Also, Rhonda adds halved cherry tomatoes to her slaw.

Either way you make it, this slaw is a great addition to a summer picnic.

Recipe for Cole Slaw

Salad Ingredients:
1 large green cabbage, finely chopped
5 carrots, peeled and shredded in the food processor or minced in a blender
5 ribs of celery, chopped
8 ounces bacon, chopped and fried until crispy (I used Petit Jean Bacon, of course!)
6 ounces crumbled blue cheese

Dressing:
2 cups mayonnaise
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons celery seed
salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients except bacon and blue cheese in a serving bowl. Mix dressing in a separate bowl. Toss with slaw. Sprinkle blue cheese and bacon on top and wait to mix those in until just before serving.

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