Tom Bevan is a part of The Green Children music group and foundation.  The Green Children plan to support Whole Planet Foundation‘s project with Grameen Trust in India with funds raised from their upcoming CD.

As a young boy I’d often watch the early evening news whilst waiting for my favorite television show to start. I remember being shocked and confused by some of the harrowing images of human poverty I saw around the world.

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Who says banana bread needs to be a guilty pleasure? Try this banana bread that delivers moist banana goodness without extra fat and calories in this week’s encore presentation. Plus, we used EARTH University™ bananas grown in Costa Rica, a Whole Foods Market exclusive, that not only offer sweet banana flavor, but also support education, entrepreneurship, and sustainable agriculture in the developing world.

Get the Recipes: Banana Bread and Banana Bread Pancakes

Each of our six of our finalists for the Food Blogger Budget Recipe Challenge will be featured in a blog post here. Read about them and check out their featured recipe. By posting a comment on their recipe page, you help determine the winner in our Challenge AND you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a $500 gift card!

Jaden Hair is a self taught cooking teacher, food writer and food photographer. Her blog specializes in modern Asian cooking, and is designed to teach people how easy it is to cook Asian meals at home. Started in February 2007, Steamy Kitchen launched Jaden’s cooking career; she now has monthly guest appearances on local television and she writes a weekly food column for the Tampa Tribune.

Don’t lie: what did you have for dinner last night?

Last night I was LAZY! I turned leftover rice into fried rice. I had shrimp and frozen peas/carrots in the freezer, cold jasmine rice in the fridge. 15 minutes later, a one-wok dinner was ready, plopped the entire wok right on the dinner table and chowed down.

Remember: Don’t comment here if you want to support Jaden in our contest. You have to comment on her recipe page. We turned comments off to help you remember!

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I think it’s pretty safe to say that in these difficult economic times, we’re all looking for ways to save a bit of money.  Thankfully, this doesn’t mean completely changing your lifestyle.  Some of our favorite ‘green’ blogs offer up some very do-able, unique solutions for conserving cash.  Check out some of our favorite creative solutions:

Frugal Green Living: Save $1000 Using These 6 Tips

Image credit: thievingjoker @ flickr

Convince your boss to let you work four (slightly longer) days a week
Working four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days is not only a great way to have a longer weekend, but it’ll save you some cash, too. You’ll save 20% on whatever you spend for commuting, coffee, lunch, and any other daily expenses you incur by dragging yourself to the office. Let’s say you do it on the cheap, and don’t drive yourself, pay for parking, or spend more than a few bucks on lunch. Even if you spend $2 on the bus or public transit, $2 for a coffee and $6 for lunch, you can easily save several hundred bucks by working four days a week. Get the nitty-gritty in our guide for How to Go Green: Commuting.

Alternately, you can telecommute on the fifth day of the week; it’ll cost a bit more in energy and food expenses, but it’ll still save money in the long haul.

Annual savings: $500+ for a four-day workweek (that’s $10 per day, one day a week, for 50 weeks a year — you get two for vacation, right?); slightly less for telecommuters.

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Each of our six of our finalists for the Food Blogger Budget Recipe Challenge will be featured in a blog post here. Read about them and check out their featured recipe. By posting a comment on their recipe page, you help determine the winner in our Challenge AND you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a $500 gift card!

Katy Zandy is a 26-year-old full time attorney and part time food blogger.  Her blog focuses on healthy, fresh, seasonal recipes with elegant presentations — all from a tiny Manhattan kitchen!  Having now posted over a hundred recipes, Katy spends a good portion of her nights, weekends, gym time, and lying-in-bed-trying-to-fall-asleep time filled with imagining new recipes, thinking of twists for classic dishes, or listing the traditionally “challenging” recipes that she can’t wait to try.

Don’t lie: what did you have for dinner last night?

Miso Soup, edamame, and vegetable sushi rolls (plus a few pieces of spicy tuna roll off my fiance’s plate).  And frozen yogurt with crushed peanut butter cups on top for dessert!

Remember: Don’t comment here if you want to support Katy in our contest. You have to comment on her recipe page. We turned comments off to help you remember!

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You’ve all surely heard the saying that ‘less is more’ – and while in many cases, this little cliche rings true, Ideal Bite’s Tip Library challenges this idea with its post this week on ‘Filling Your Fridge‘.  According to this tip article, an estimated 50% of the transport-related pollution of your food comes from your drive to and from the store (the other half comes the move from source to retail store)?  Also, depending on the city you live in, time spent parking each time you make a trip to the store may make each trip ‘cost’ more time than you realize.  So unless you’ve bought into the idea of alternative transportation for your grocery trips (which we highly encourage!), it might be a good idea to stock up and save money.

Here are some excellent tips from our customers on The Whole Deal™ who’ve found ways to conserve their time and energy with smarter shopping trips:

Nicole A.:

We register our e-mail with all of the brands that we use every week (i.e. Seventh Generation, Organic Valley, Kashi, etc) and then print out coupons that the companies send us for use in any store. We also keep an eye out for sales and stock up on the things we use regularly. Many items actually cost less at Whole Foods than at some of the other chain grocery stores.

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Each of our six of our finalists for the Food Blogger Budget Recipe Challenge will be featured in a blog post here. Read about them and check out their featured recipe. By posting a comment on their recipe page, you help determine the winner in our Challenge AND you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a $500 gift card!

Karina Allrich is a creative cook who enjoys developing easy rustic recipes featuring seasonal ingredients and Mediterranean inspired flavors.  Her illustrated blog, Karina’s Kitchen: Recipes from a Gluten-Free Goddess showcases delicious family recipes for the gluten-free lifestyle with Mediterranean diet, casein-free, vegetarian and vegan recipes galore. She is the author of two cookbooks- Recipes from a Vegetarian Goddess (reprinted as Cooking By The Seasons) and Cooking By Moonlight.

Don’t lie: what did you have for dinner last night?

A bowl of pumpkin-apple soup with a slice of homemade gluten-free multi-grain bread (testing a new recipe) grilled in a dab of extra virgin olive oil. Yum!

Remember: Don’t comment here if you want to support Karina in our contest. You have to comment on her recipe page. We turned comments off to help you remember!

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Everyone talks about beans being a great value source of protein, but not everyone knows how to get them on the table easily. In this podcast, we asked nutritionist and natural foods chef Alana Sugar to demystify the process of cooking dried beans. Listen in to find out how and if you want more details, check out our Beans 101.  Once your beans are cooked, you can freeze them and use in any recipe calling for canned beans.

Here are a few of our favorite bean-based recipes. What are yours?

• Refried Beans with Roasted Salsa and Monterey Jack
• Bread Salad with Pinto Beans and Queso Fresco
• White Bean Soup

Podcast: Download