You can simply and easily reduce your carbon footprint, save money on your power bill and teach your kids through example how to help the earth just by tweaking your cooking techniques a bit!

Did you know:

• Choose the right size pan for cooking and keep the lid on for most of the cooking process to reduce energy use by up to 90%.

• Cook in batches! Plan out your family’s meals and prepare enough for several meals. Just freeze, refrigerate or dehydrate the remaining portions. It will use up less energy and make preparing meals for your family quite a bit easier!
• Cook several items on top of each other in a stacked steamer to get the most out of the energy you use.
• Try one-dish meals; they are easier for you but also use about a third of the energy than cooking a meal using tons of different pans. This means you can feel good about cooking a pot of diry rice, casserole, paella, etc. and also have less cleanup!
• Stop checking! You waste heat and energy every time you open up the stove or crockpot to take a peek.
• Don’t preheat the oven when it’s not required. For some recipes it is critical you do this but for manyyou don’t need to.
• Stay away from prepackaged meals. Most of the time they aren’t terribly tasty and lack nutrients and fresh ingredients. Instead have a short list of go-to meals you know you have the ingredients for and are easy to cook.

For example, in my home we like to roast a large amount of butternut squash and use some of it that day, refrigerate some for the rest of the week and freeze the rest for the remaining month. We make butternut squash ravioli, lasagna, pancakes and even layer it in a sandwich in place of cheese. This makes putting together my family’s meals so much easier and also saves a lot of energy!