Cooking Tip #1

I know its rather ironic that I am giving out cooking tips but these refer to how to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions, rather than how to actually make something edible... I'm possibly not the best person to advise on that particular aspect of cooking.

This is the first cooking tip that I will reveal to you and is also possibly the easiest, most effective and cheapest.

*PUT ON A LID WHEN YOU USE A SAUCEPAN!!!*

Yes its that easy! Just put the lid on! It takes approximately 0.03 seconds. And you can then turn the energy to your hob down by about half. Thus halving your CO2 emissions from gas or electricity, whichever your cooker uses. (More about gas vs. electric cookers later.)

1. Easy - just put the lid on
2. Effective - reduce energy consumption to cook that pot of pasta by half
3. Cheap - your saucepan came with a lid when you bought it so this action costs you nothing!

Obsessively putting lids on saucepans has caused some controversy with my housemates, who prefer to have the hob on full blast and evaporate a load of water into thin air, rather than keep it in the pot where instead it cooks whatever it is you're eating that evening... strange... We have now agreed to put one person in charge of cooking and one in charge of washing up whenever we cook together to avoid these lid confrontations. So far no one had been hit on the head with a saucepan lid but it was probably only a matter of time.