Top 10 Tips for Saving Energy In The Kitchen

Guest post from Rinehart Inspection Services:

The kitchen, with all its appliances, gadgets and heat, is a real hotspot for potential energy saving. Since the oven uses the most energy and creates a vast amount of heat while cooking foods, it’s a good place to start!

1. When baking cookies use two trays. While one is in the oven baking, the other one is prepped with raw cookies – ready to replace the tray in the oven with no wasted heat and some time saved.

2. Baking bread? Fill the oven with foil wrapped potatoes. The baked potatoes can be stored in the fridge without the foil and used throughout the week in a myriad of recipes, or as a side dish. This method can be applied to a menu plan in that if you are baking one dish, try to include a side dish that is baked as well.

3. Turn off the oven a minute or two before the dish is done, the residual heat will finish the cooking.

4. When done with the oven, open the door to allow any leftover heat to warm the home.

5. Pasta cooking water can be left out until it has completely cooled – so that the heat and moisture are released back into the air.

6. Before pulling the plug, consider leaving hot dishwater (and bath water) until it cools. Why pay to heat up your sewer pipes?

7. When cooking vegetables, consider steaming instead of boiling. When steamed, more nutrients are retained in the food, and because it requires less water to heat – there is less energy used.

8. Rather than running the tap when cleaning vegetables, use a bowl of water. Later, reuse it to water outdoor plants.

9. Reusing water from rinsing out the coffeepot for outdoor plants, the compost or lawn is something we do all the time. Rich in nitrogen as well as some trace minerals, coffeepots should be diluted with water before using. Choose a different group of plants every day and you may find you no longer have to water or fertilize them very often at all. Cooking water (pasta, steamed vegetables, boiled potatoes etc.) can be used in the same way – just let it cool first. All of these water sources contain extra nutrients that will aid your gardens immensely. Very hot cooking water can be used to kill weeds – simply pour it directly on the weed and around its roots.

10. After meals, scrape your dishes into the compost bucket before rinsing. While rinsing, place other soiled dishes, jars and utensils underneath while you work; it will begin the presoaking process – reducing labor and water use. Anything caught in the sink basket can be contributed to the compost, too. Save about 5 gallons of water per washing by doing dishes in a few inches of hot soapy water. It may seem funny to do this – but by turning the hot water tap on to rinse the dishes into the sink the level will slowly increase and will maintain a hot temperature. This way, another sink full of water solely for rinsing is no longer necessary. We sometimes use rinse water to pre- soak stuck on dishes as well.