As most of you know by now, level 3B water restrictions have been implemented in Cape Town after the dam levels dropped below 40%. And even if you don’t live in the Mother City, it is important for each one of us to be aware of how much of this precious resource we waste. Since you all love to cook as much as we do, we thought we’d dedicate this week’s How To to water saving tips.

By Roxy Greeff

1. Put away the colander, you don’t need to wash your veggies under a running tap. Instead, fill a bowl with water and rinse them in there finishing off with a scrub from a good-quality vegetable brush.

2. Plan ahead. If you need something defrosted for tomorrow, put it in the fridge to defrost tonight instead of filling a sink with water to do it last minute.

3. Leftover boiling water from pasta, rice, eggs, potatoes or anything really should not be strained down the drain. Empty it out into a jug and use it to water your plants.

4. A dishwasher almost always uses less water than washing dishes by hand, but for some reason most of us insist in rinsing each and every dish before popping it into the dishwasher. Not only is this an unnecessary waste of time, but also redundant. Ninety percent of the time, the dishwasher will have your pots and pans perfectly clean, and if one or two have to go in again with the next batch, there nothing wrong with that.

5. If you wash your dishes by hand and prefer to rinse them beforehand so you don’t have to keep changing the dish water, rather fill your sink with water and rinse them in that before washing instead of rinsing them under that dreaded running tap.

6. In most parts of South Africa, our tap water is perfectly fine to drink. In fact we have very good water in our beautiful country, and it takes an excessive amount of water to produce plastic bottles. So rather refill your own reuseable bottle instead of buying bottled water.

7. Invest in a steamer. Not only does it use less water than boiling, but it also locks in nutrients and is super convenient since you don’t have to watch over it while your food is cooking.

8. Waiting for your tap water to cool down or heat up? Keep your watering can handy and catch this water to use for your plants.

9. Use the correct size pot for cooking. Use one that is exactly the size you need. You will need less water to fill it and won’t need to worry about most of that water evaporating.

10. Spot clean your floor. Sweep and clean up messes as they happen and mop up spills with a wet dishcloth you keep handy. This is also great for you since you won’t have to slave over the old mop and bucket as often.

Easy enough? We think so.