Nutella Banana Bread and Blog Action Day

Nupur has a lot to do with this post, read on for details.

Lawns and Water - Blog Action Day

My first awareness of what a simple almost routine activity like taking care of the lawn could do to the environment came when I read about portions of the Chesapeake Bay becoming dead and the bay losing its ability to heal itself. Dangers posed by too much Nitrogen.

Can we do something about it?
During the spring and summers months , entering into suburbia a common sight is numerous water sprinklers sprinkling millions of gallons of water into the ground. This sprinkling method which is by far the most common method makes certain that a few gallons evaporate beore they even touch the ground.

The fertilizer and pesticides applied to the lawn to make them look healthy and ofcourse the envy of the neighborhood gets washed off by too much water and in the process hurting the fragile ecosystem.

How many times have we heard the real estate agent say an attractive lawn adds at least a few thousands to the value of the house and this fact is hard to ignore.

The runoffs from watering and chemicals mixed with it, enters the streams and rivers and thereby polluting everything in sight.

From the unscientific survey done in my neighborhood, the lawns of neighbors who regularly water their lawn and have a lawn maintenance company apply pesticides and fertilizers looks almost the same as my lawn which is not watered and fertilized regularly, most times it depends on nature to do the trick, as for fertilizer, a small amount of lawn clippings is left on the grass itself to nourish. No amount of watering and fertilizing can do what mother nature in the form of rain can do.

This summer it was really easy to see the contrast, due to the lack of rains, most lawns look brown, the lawns which were watered regularly looked no different from the lawns which did not see even a sprinkle of water. Two days of rains in August and the lawns all magically turned green.

We stopped applying fertilizers and pesticides because the kids play in the lawn and I was not too comfortable with them playing in so much chemicals. Yes we do have a few weeds but from my reading having clover keeps the grubs out and when the lawn is mowed the green of the weeds is hard to differentiate from the green of the grass itself :)

Read about the alternatives to taking care in the Washington Post Turf

Easy and Healthy for the wallet too:
In the North East US this year, we have had an unusually dry summer, though mandatory water restrictions is not here yet, taking care while watering the lawns and even controlling the pressure in the faucets we use everyday can save quiet a bit of water. The cost of sewage treatment is much more than the water itself so every bit saved from hitting the drain is money saved.

By the way,
Congratulations! Vice President Gore, Winner Nobel Prize, Global Warming Activism.




I have to thank Nupur twice once for the delicious Banana Bread and the second time for reminding to write for Blog Action Day. Checked out the lovely Peanut Butter Banana Bread on her blog and even for a non baker like me it was simply irresistible. Did a few substitutions, I am not too fond of Peanut Butter and the alternate suggested by Nupur - Nutella seemed perfect and creamy. Sweet.


Here are the ingredients as I made them.
Nutella Banana Bread

Ingredients
1. 1 1/2 cup of Whole Wheat Pasty flour
2. 1 tsp baking soda
3. 1 tbsp Raw Cane Sugar
4. a pinch of salt

5. 2 medium sized bananas (about 3/4 cup of mashed bananas)
6. 1/3 cup Nutella
7. 1 Egg
8. 1 tbsp butter
9. 1/4 cup yogurt
10. 4 tbsp molasses

Method
1. Mix the ingredients 5-10, once mixed add the flour, soda, sugar and salt.
2. Spray a loaf pan
3. Pour the batter and bake at 350F for about 1hr.

Lovely Nutella Banana bread ready, smear a little bit of Nutella on it, tastes . Family is happy and all thanks to Nupur.