To remove excess oil from fried food use kitchen paper towels.
For example when you fry eggplant or zucchini slices, before transferring them to the plates, put them for a while on a plate with kitchen towel and cover with another piece of towel to remove oil from both sides…
It really remove big amount of oil so you can have tastier and healthier food.

When baking you can use teflon oven liners instead of buttering baking tins. Cakes do not stick to teflon so they are easier to remove from the tin and you have less washing.

Proper non-stick cookware is the best way to reduce oil you are using for cooking. Hard anodised pots are really worth spent money. I use pots from TCM (Tchibo) and Stellar, they are great and so easy to wash. The only minus is that you have to be careful not to scratch them.