Friday Five: Efficient cooking

I'm not up on the science behind a lot of these tips, some of them may even just be the placebo effect working its magic on me! While they may not save you a lot of money or energy, every little helps: so give them a try. Let me know what you think of these tips and any tips you have for making your cooking efficient.

 -1-  

Use big mugs when making tea for one. 

I most people in the UK, I like drinking tea. There are around 165 million cups of tea and 70 million cups of coffee consumed each day in the UK. That works out to 3.77 cups each every day!
Drinking tea in our house means boiling water in an electric kettle - apparently not the most efficient means of boiling water. But it would be too expensive to go out and install solar panels or a gas stove just to make a cup of tea, so we're stuck with it! As with most electric kettles, there is a minimum fill level of 'one' cup. This 'one' cup had a larger capacity than any mug we had.
To cut a long story short, I bought a bigger mug. This means that I actually drink the same amount of tea with fewer boils of the kettle (and less water wasted as steam!?).

The uber mug!

-2-

Use extractor fans sparingly.

The extraction unit is a useful bit of kitchen equipment. It extracts odours and steam from cooking. But left on too long, it will suck out all of the heat in your home. It's estimated that left on for just 2-3 hours it can empty a house of heat. So make sure you turn if off asap, otherwise you'll be spending more money on heating to bring your house back up to a comfortable temperature.

-3-

Batch cook to save time and energy.

If you're going to be using your oven, then you may as well make as many meals as possible while it's on. After cooking you can split your meals into portions and freeze them. They can be microwave heated at a later date.

-4-

After cooking, leave the oven door open.

We always do this as the kitchen is the coldest room of the house. It makes a noticeable difference to the temperature of the kitchen - just make sure you close and turn off your extractor or you'll just be pumping all that heat out on to the street! Another option is to turn your oven off 10 minutes early and as long as you don't open the oven door, it'll keep the same temperature.

-5-

Steam instead of boil.

We've found that we use far less water by using a steamer than boiling veg in pans. This can drastically reduce water usage for cooking because the same water cooks (on our steamer) up to three levels of veg. Steaming rather than boiling also:

• reduces the electricity required to cook the food as it's one source or heat rather than 2 or 3 hobs.
• means there is less steam filling the kitchen, so the extractor can be on a lower setting or often not even on (we use the steamer directly under the extraction unit). 
• retains flavour and nutrients.
• means that we don't have to keep checking if the pan is boiling over - so we can chill while our food cooks!

We have a Tefal Minicompact steamer which takes next to no space to store - perfect for anyone with decluttering or minimalistic tendencies.

-Bonus-

Here are some energy saving tips from EnergySavingTips1 on YouTube.

Resources:
5 Reasons to Steam Instead of Boil - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com. 2014. 5 Reasons to Steam Instead of Boil - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://voices.yahoo.com/5-reasons-steam-instead-boil-6724238.html?cat=22. [Accessed 14 February 2014].
85 Ways to Save - Pepco. 2014. 85 Ways to Save - Pepco. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pepco.com/home/education/conserving/save/. [Accessed 14 February 2014].
Energy-efficient cooking tips for using less energy when you cook. 2014. Energy-efficient cooking tips for using less energy when you cook. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.uswitch.com/energy-saving/guides/energy-efficient-cooking/. [Accessed 14 February 2014].
The Benefits of Steaming Vegetables | PureBlog. 2014. The Benefits of Steaming Vegetables | PureBlog. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.gopure.com/blog/benefits-steaming-vegetables/. [Accessed 14 February 2014].
The Cuppa Paradox – How Small Numbers Can Become Huge. 2014. The Cuppa Paradox – How Small Numbers Can Become Huge. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.greensteve.com/269/the-cuppa-paradox-how-small-numbers-can-become-huge/. [Accessed 14 February 2014].