Out of the Frying Pan

My month of reduced electricity and water consumption and our tour around my apartment continues today with a look at energy consumption in the kitchen.

Our setting...

Oh, the kitchen. There are so many damn electrical gadgets in the kitchen! Here's the low down on the gadgets and appliances I use more or less daily that consume power (listed in order of how often I use them):

• The refrigerator/freezer
  
• The over-counter fluorescent lights
  
• The ceiling lights
  
• The electric range
  
• The microwave oven
  
• The oven

And then there are all of these gadget and appliances which I use occasionally:

• The coffee grinder
  
• The crockpot
  
• The KitchenAid
  
• The Cuisinart
  
• The ice cream maker
  
• The bread machine (Actually, I can't even recall the last time I used this!)
  
  

Of all these power consumers, the refrigerator/freezer unit clearly is the big spender. You got to have it, and you got to have it on all the time. There's nothing I can do about that (aside from shutting the doors promptly and allowing hot leftovers to cool down before storing them inside the fridge unit). But everything else, there's plenty of room to tinker. 

For example, I can mix or chop most everything by hand, and I can continue to skip coffee with its obligatory bean grinding. And do I need to heat food for every meal? No, I don't. Not in the summer time, anyway, when there are so much yummy vegetables and fruit available, most of which tastes as good or better fresh than cooked. Raw recipes, I want them now!

Okay, so THESE are cooked veggies, but they also tasted good cold the next day!

I also can make choices about how I cook things—recall my potato query: do I nuke the potato in the microwave for 6-8 minutes, or do I bake it in the oven for 45 minutes? Zapping it in the microwave is the smarter power decision, although I might lose a little in terms of flavor (not to mention the subject of microwave safety, on which I'm hopelessly uneducated). I'm definitely NOT using the crockpot this month. You'd have to be an idiot to cook with the crockpot right now, given that most of the US is a hot, humid mess currently. (Of course, it's barely cresting 70 in Seattle, much less in my perpetually cool apartment.)

Here are my July-energy action points in the kitchen:

1. I am not using my crockpot, KitchenAid, Cuisinart, or bread maker. I am resisting use of the ice cream maker (it is summer, darn it!), the coffee grinder, and the oven.

2. I am heating my coffee or tea water with the plug-in electric teakettle (brought home from the office) instead of heating up water on the range—faster, uses less overall energy.

A Tale of Two Teakettles

3. I am resisting cooking more than one meal a day. I am trying to choose the fastest, most efficient cooking method available.

4. Unless it is nighttime outside—or a really, truly gloomy day—I will run no more than one light fixture/lamp at a time in the kitchen. I will run NO lights whenever I can get away with it.

5. When I need light, I will make do with the over-the-counter fluorescent lights, which are individually turned on/off and contain one bulb each, before I flip the ceiling light switch, which turns on two fixtures with two IFL bulbs apiece. 

One fluorescent light goes a long way.

6. I will not stand and stare mindlessly in the refrigerator or freezer, or leave the door to either open for longer than it takes for me to put whatever in or take whatever out.

7. I will not leave appliances plugged in when not in use.

 

We'll continue in the kitchen tomorrow with a post breaking down my water usage habits and issues. But for now, let's check in briefly with my other goal for July: "Stop! Hammock Time!"

 

I heart my hammock!

I read in my hammock right after my last post for about three hours. I haven't been back, because it's been cool and wet in Seattle, and also because I went on vacation to gloriously hot and sunny Idaho. But I did spend some time reading by the pool there. In case you were wondering what I'm reading, my book list is pretty dang nerdy this summer, full of sci-fi, zombies, and fantasy with zombie-like creatures: "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks, "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card and George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books (now, thanks to HBO, commonly known by the first book's title "A Game of Thrones"—I'm about to start the third one!). I promise to read something more hifalutin before September…