Only boil what you need

One of the pledges I made for World Environment Day was to boil only the water that I need. I'm not a regular tea or coffee drinker, and the only time I use the kettle is to boil water for cooking pasta, rice or noodles, and on the odd occasion to fill up the washing up bowl if the tank is out of hot water (more on that coming up in a later post). As far as I can tell, heating the water in the kettle is more efficient than heating it in a pan on the stove as it takes less time and more of the heat seems to be used for heating the water (rather than it all being lost up the sides of the pan). If anyone can prove me wrong, please let me know.

With a little experimentation, I've found that I only need 0.8 litres for pasta and 0.6 litres for noodles, according to the graduations on the kettle. Normally I would fill the kettle right to the top and would have to boil a whole litre of water. Not only is this a waste of water but a waste of electricity too.

I've also found an efficient way of cooking rice from Delia Smiths 1998 book, How to Cook - Book One. In her ten rules for cooking perfect rice she recommends using twice the volume of water to the volume of rice, always keep the lid on throughout cooking and turn down the heat to its lowest setting. Not only is it more efficient but it also results in superior fluffy rice! Delicious!

Have a read of this interesting article about efficient kettle design, and don't forget to choose wisely if you're in need of a new kettle.

Finally, if you filter water before putting it in the kettle, don't use water from the fridge. Keep the filter jug by the kettle - room temperature water will take less energy to boil than water from the fridge or even the cold water tap.

caldini