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Well, I went and did it.

I broke down and bought an air fryer.

In the old days I bought every appliance known to man as soon as they hit the retail shelves. I wanted to be the first to break out my new “toys”. I quit that when I downsized from a huge kitchen with tons of cabinets and a massive pantry to a regular-sized apartment kitchen. You may not know this about me, but I have an aversion to covering my counter top with appliances. I prefer the coffee pot be the only appliance. That leaves room for my rack of knives, a produce bowl, a roll of paper towels and maybe a piece of art. I got the air fryer, but I still don’t have an InstaPot, a sous vide, or even a donut fryer. Truth be told, I’m afraid of pressure cookers. I still have nightmares from when I was a child.

So why did I get an air fryer?

A few reasons. I miss my convection oven. In the big house I had gas burners and two convection ovens. In this place I have a regular electric stove/oven that takes forever to heat up. I liked being able to get dinner on the table faster with a convection oven and I liked its crisper performance. Some days it seems wasteful turning on a big oven to just put in a meal for two.

The air fryer I got is Emeril Legasse’s Air Fryer 360. I am not here to endorse his air fryer/oven. I’m not even sure I am friends with it yet. So, stand by on that. I bought up which one I got because this one is bigger than most air fryers I have seen. You can cook a 4 lb chicken in this one on a rotisserie or even a small turkey. It’s a rectangle. Looks like a large toaster oven rather than an upright model like most air fryers. It’s not huge on my counter. I am getting used to it sitting there. I like to be able to bake in a smaller oven. Reminds me of an Easy Bake Oven from childhood. The first thing I baked were my Banana Peanut Butter Bars. They came out perfect.

What I hate so far about the oven is the noise. I know it’s convection so it has to circulate air and that will make noise. I just didn’t expect to have to turn up the TV to drown it out. That might end up being a deal breaker for me. I am trying to pretend that I live in Europe in a small apartment and this might very well be the only oven. I am working to figure out how to cook whole meals in this thing using more than one rack at a time. Truth be told I really don’t ever intend to fry chicken in this thing. I looked at Emeril’s recipe. It has six cups of corn flakes in it! YIKES. I might break down and make some chicken tenders some day as a treat. If I figure out a recipe I’ll let you know.

One other secret, I caved and made little fried potato cubes in it. They were fantastic.

Cheers,

P.S. It’s also easy to clean.