We have come to Day 18 of our Green Year and we move to the kitchen for our next bit of green change in the Baird household.We know that the fridge and stove are big power consumers in the household. There is not much we can do about the fridge right now except upgrade it to an Energy Star appliance, but with the stove Layla and I have endeavored to use it as little as we can; instead, choosing to use a hot plate grill that allows us to cook nearly anything we need without ever using the stove. It uses much less power than the stove and in some ways, does a much better job.
Another thing we are doing is cutting down on the energy waste of our cookware. When we are cooking a little bit food, we won't use a large pot because the water takes longer to heat up and that means more work on the stove to do it. Instead, we are going to be using pots that are sized perfectly for what we need. We will also be upgrading our cookware so that it has a flat bottom, which provides more contact with the burner and allows it to cook the contents faster. We also will not be cooking anything on a burner that is larger than the pot; this is just a huge waste of energy.
We mentioned yesterday about solar cookers, which we will be building on our own and displaying, that will help us cut down on the use of the stove. Coupled with our reliance on the small grill, we will save quite a bit of energy in the kitchen simply by cooking smart and with the environment in mind.
