Climate Challenge Day Three: Full Ovens

Full  Ovens!

How to use your data! We have a smart meter, so I checked our electric usage for Friday, when I was NOT being oven aware. We woke up in the morning to no bread, which means, no lunch. Because I had dough, I baked a loaf, all alone in the oven, and Mark brought me a sandwich before lunchtime. Then, when I finally came home around six, I tossed two sweet potatoes into the little toaster oven we use for small batches. I was able to sort out about how much electricity each used. Both were on for about the same amount of time and at the same temperature.  The big oven used about .9 KWh to bake a loaf of bread, and left its heat in the house. The small oven used about .6 KWh to bake the potatoes and only warmed the back hall.  The small oven is more efficient and should be used for small batches. However, the ideal would be to bake both sweet potatoes and bread in the same oven, saving .6 KWh of energy.

I make our own bread, using locally grown, home ground wheat combined with white flour from eastern Washington State, which is the closest I could find.  Because of this, our oven is on several times a week. My goal, which I am working on this month, is to never bake just bread. Something else has to be in there, too.

Our  Bread Recipe

3 cups of warm water

1.5 T yeast

1.5 T salt

6.5 cups of flour—I usually use half whole wheat, half white.

Mix it all together.  Let it sit, covered, on the counter for a couple of hours, then put it in the fridge overnight.  The next day, take half of it, form it on a ball, let it rise for about 15 minutes, and toss it onto a baking stone on a 450 degree oven. Bake until it sounds hollow—like thumping a dog on the base of the spine with a cupped hand.

You can use the dough for pizza, sticky buns, onion and cheese rolls….anything that wants a yeasted dough.  You can also add all sorts of things to the dough or mix in different flours. I, of course, have a chart.

Options:

Learn to make one food that comes in single use packaging, like bread or yogurt.  Commit to making, rather than purchasing, that food for one year.

Set a goal of the percentage of local, whole, unpackaged foods your family will eat in the next year.

Check your smart meter data! Every day for a week, so that you remember what you were doing when. Make adjustments accordingly.