Posted 08/22/2024

Cooking at home with less energy is easy.

Whether you are cooking with gas or electric, simply turn off the heat minutes before the dish is done cooking.

For stews and soups, you can also turn off the heat when you add the final seasonings.

If you are cooking beans, pasta, and whole grains; take a taste for doneness. If they are minutes away from being cooked, turn off the heat.

And keep the lid on. The residual heat continues the cooking.

When I teach how to make vegetarian sushi, I like to tell my story of how I was cooking jade pearl rice to make vegetarian sushi. My neighbor called me to come over now rather than later.

I turned off the stove and went to my neighbor’s house.

Much to my surprise, when I returned the rice was perfectly cooked.

Ordinarily, I would have simmered the rice for 15 minutes, but now I just bring it to a boil and turn off the heat.

In fact, even with longer cooking whole grains, like one of my favorite breakfasts, steel cut oats, I turn off the heat prematurely, when most of the water is absorbed, and let the residual heat finish the cooking.

And today, I turned off the heat as soon as the fresh picked organic edamame beans turned bright green. Within a few more minutes, the residual heat finished cooking the edamame beans.

Same is true for frying the sourdough bread with pesto in the photo above. I heated the cast iron skillet to fry the bread in organic extra virgin olive oil. Flipped them over and turned off the heat to let the residual heat do the rest of the cooking.

Another cooking tip, regarding cooking quinoa for a dielicious organic, gluten free, tabouli salad is to cook the quinoa in the morning and let it cool on its own before making the salad later.

Now you can spend less time cooking and less energy. And have more home cooked delicious meals.