Resist the urge to repeatedly check on your culinary masterpiece while it's baking. Every time the oven door is opened, the temperature is lowered by 25 to 75 degrees, and ... read full tip

Resist the urge to repeatedly check on your culinary masterpiece while it's baking. Every time the oven door is opened, the temperature is lowered by 25 to 75 degrees, and additional energy is needed to heat the oven back up.

If you use the oven window-or a timer-to judge the readiness of your dish instead of opening the door several times, you could save about 600 watts of energy per meal.

If half of all American households chose to keep their oven door closed the next time they cooked something in the oven, the amount of energy saved could bake 22 million batches of cookies-about one dozen for each student enrolled in a U.S. elementary school this fall.