By GreenHouse17

Do you pin? We do! The featured image above this post is just a joke. Pinterest is not a waste of time at all, but time sure does fly by when you’re in pin discovery mode!

Our organization started pinning about a year ago, and we’re learning new reasons to pin every day. At first we just considered the site to be akin to scrapbooking. We would find a beautiful image or inspiring quotation, and then we’d “pin” it to our “board.” This first board quickly grew into several boards.  It was fun to watch our pins be “re-pinned” by others…

But now what?

Someone very wise once said to surround yourself with people who make you better. One of the great things about the wonderful pinning community is their penchant for planning ahead.  For those of us who aren’t thinking about our Thanksgiving side dishes just yet, this quality of Pinterest can be very useful. Pinners began collecting recipes using spring harvest vegetables back before the snow began to fall in Kentucky. And all of these recipes are all just a search bar away.

So, we’ve begun pinning for a new reason: to discover new recipes for field-to-table meals in our emergency shelter! A search for arugula on Pinterest returns an endless list of fabulous images, each linked to a website with the complete recipe. The variety of search results for kale is overwhelming: kale chips, kale smoothies, kale balls, kale dips, kale cupcakes, kale sorbet, and many, many more. We are collecting these recipes on board titled “we are cooking.”

In just a few short weeks, we’ve accumulated about 50 pins of recipes using produce and herbs grown here on the farm. We’ve also extended pinning credentials for our organization’s account to others on our staff. While we’re scrolling through Pinterest to pass the time and happen upon the perfect recipe for all the beets we’ll have in a few weeks, we can just pin it to our organization’s recipe board. And the recipe will there when we begin planning for next month’s menu.

We wonder how other Grow Appalachia partners are using Pinterest? Please leave us a comment to share your tips. By the way, here’s the link to our recipe board on Pinterest. Follow us, and we’ll follow you back! Let’s pin together.