168 Reduce Your Costs and Energy This Christmas

<p><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --></p> <h3 id="heading">Save Energy Bills</h3> <p><!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>We are all concerned about energy bills right now so optimising your usage of the oven and hob is essential. You should never have to turn your oven on to cook just one thing, so if you can prepare and cook dishes in advance do so. And even better, cook double the portions. You have saved yourself time and energy.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>You often don't need to reheat your oven, in recipes we reheat so we can give you more exact timings, but most of the time at home I just pop something into the oven to start to cook straight away. And if you do preheat your oven make sure you are ready to put the food in as soon as it is heated, it can take less time than you think.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>If you have a slow cooker, or an airfryer, check to see what you can cook in them as they are much cheaper to heat than a full oven.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Can you cook more than one vegetable in the water? This is something my grandma often did, and I do the same. I might boil carrots in the water and drain them with a spoon into a serving bowl, then use the same water to boil brocolli and then make gravy with it. This also helps keep the nutrients.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --></p> <p> </p> <p><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --></p> <h3 id="heading">How to save money food shopping.</h3> <p><!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>This is going to take Make a meal plan, work out how many days you will be eating at home, as many of us will eat out over the holiday period, and how many you are catering for for each meal. Then do a meal plan - when doing your meal plan make sure you optimise leftovers, don't be tempted to over cater, if you are having a big breakfast then one other meal in the day is more than enough.</p> <p><!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --></p> <p>Then make your