As if you couldn’t tell, I am in energy saving mode this season. With the heat in our home set at 70 during the day and 65 during the night, it is going to be an expensive fall, winter, and spring. Especially since it is predicted that energy bills will be 5% higher. Since I can’t set the heat down because Hubby is always cold, I am finding other ways to try to keep our utility bill reasonable.
One of the ways I do this is to bake a lot of items at once in our oven. Another way is to roast more than one poultry item at a time. I did that yesterday.
I thawed 2 frozen chickens(that I purchased at our rock bottom price of $.79 a lb.) both about 7 1/4 lbs. and roasted them at the same time in my turkey roasting pan.
When they were done, we took one and used it for dinner last night. We will be eating leftovers for the weekend and beyond. Tonight will be all the leftovers from our chicken dinner last night. Tomorrow will be hot chicken sandwiches. These two chickens made a delicious gravy and a lot of it.
I removed all of the meat from the other chicken after our dinner and used the food saver to package it up for the freezer. Then I used my large crock pot to make broth using the bones and skin from the carcasses. That cooked overnight. Some will be used for soup on Monday and some was frozen in a jar for soup when we eat the second chicken. I sliced some of the meat up and diced some of it. The little bits and pieces will get thrown in soup. The diced will be for casseroles, skillet dishes, and the soup. The sliced will be for sandwiches.
Not only did cooking two at a time save us energy, it also saved me time and less dishes to wash than if I cooked twice. Big pans aren’t my favorite thing to scrub.
So the next time you go to turn your oven on, think about what you can put in there for more than one meal and make it do double or triple duty and save energy at the same time.
8 replies on “More Energy Saved”
Loved the money saving energy article. I try to much of the same thing. Nothing like saving where ever we can. I have a question what are your thoughts on the insta pot pressure cookers that everyone is using? Do you have one? I think about it then decide against it. Just on the fence with it.
I do nor have that brand name one. However I do have a Cook's essential small one which is just perfect for the two of us. It saves energy and cooks things very quickly. We use it a lot for cooking rice or homemade mac n cheese.
Our house is between 65 & 63 these days. We've had the heat on once for an hour or two. It's brisk! It's typically warm enough during the day, but chilly as soon as the sun goes down. We're hoping to hold off a bit longer.
As for us, I made pumpkin bread today, & while the oven was going (gloriously heating the house), I also put in chicken for the boys lunches. I'm running the dishwasher mid-day (normally don't) to also heat the house a bit.
Hi Hawaii Planner,
Good luck with holding off on the heat.
Those are good energy saving tips. Thanks for sharing.
I try to cook for more than one meal, ALWAYS. I cannot believe that I once cooked one chicken breast at a time for myself. Of course, there was just me back then and now.
Hi Linda,
We have probably all done that at one time or another.
Hi Liz, this is Chris. Today I did laundry. I do use the dryer, but I do all the laundry on one day every 2 weeks (except towels and sheets) so that we have full loads and I keep the dryer going while it is still hot. I do the same for the dishwasher, most of the time I don't have to run it every day any more. Sometimes I try to see how well I can load it to keep from running it. LOL!
Hi Chris,
I wish I could do all the laundry on one day every two weeks. That would be a great savings. I am with you on loading it till there isn't an inch left. We run the dishwasher about every two days.
You have done wonderful with your savings.