Never waste an oven!

[Pilotlite]

I heard this phrase a few times on MN threads about batch cooking/energy prices/organisation type things and I just wanted to say it’s been SUCH a helpful
motto.

if I’m oven cooking chicken nuggets and chips endlessly for DC then I make myself find a couple of other things that could usefully be cooked. Usually it’s either roasting random veg wilting in the fridge or unloved from the Fruit & Veg Box that I can use for lunch or sides, stews or curries that can go in the freezer, or things like granola, oat bars, simple biscuits.

Anyway, it’s massively cut down on food waste and makes me feel really organised! I struggle to find time for batch cooking or home made baking otherwise.

thank you Never Waste An Oven quoters! And also please does anyone have any other go-to non oven wasting recipes?

To a degree I agree with this, but putting a lot of things in your oven will take longer eg even with a fan oven the lower shelf items won't cook as quickly.

It's still more efficient than if you cooked them individually of course but it's not as much of a saving as you might think.

Also the cookies for £1.50 - how many cookies did you make? Say, 20 - 25? Per cookie that's 4 or 5 p. Yes, you can get a pack of biscuits cheaper (once you factor in cost of ingredients) but far nicer and arguably worth the cost.

I'm not ignoring the escalating utility costs but feel sometimes the savings can be made more effectively elsewhere. (Our house is the house of lights with lights constantly left on, that drives me nuts!)

I have a double oven, and the top one is really quite small, so I can justify turning it on for baking. It heats up in no time. If I do turn on the big bottom oven, I really try to fill it. Worst case scenario, I cook a big tray of roasted veg too, and some baked spuds for later in the week. It's very satisfying.

I really struggle to have things ready to go in, if I haven’t planned them. So I only use my oven on Fridays and Sundays. Fridays for pizza, bread rolls and cookies for DD, and sometimes a bread and butter pudding or a cake for us. Homemade breakfast bars if I’m really organised (mostly I am not!). Sundays I do a roast and a crumble or pudding, extra large yorkshires to reheat the leftovers in, a lasagne or something and a big tray of roasted veggies for the following week. If there are any gaps, I stuff in a couple of baked potatoes, too. The rest of the week we manage with the air fryer or the microwave (I usually batch cook a soup and chilli or a pasta dish too. I rarely cook midweek now, unless it’s just a salmon fillet and veggies or something. It’s made me awfully lazy, but it’s cheap and we aren’t hungry, which is all I can ask at the moment)

Definitely make bread rolls in your oven. They are easy, only take about 15 minutes to cook, freeze brilliantly, and when you microwave them and get fresh bread it feels like a feast, even though it costs pennies. Same with pizza. Kids love it, too.