OK, so no one has ever accused me of being the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to cooking and the tools and utensils used in the pursuit thereof.
Since Connie passed away, her exclusive domain of the kitchen has passed on to me. And honestly, I never had any reason to learn how to cook beyond something that would pop into the microwave cold and come out hot. And frankly, had I attempted to foist that control from Connie, I seriously think a row would ensue with her agonizing over the thought that her cooking was not good enough for me. Which is patently false, of course, and I am sure had I attempted making a meal and she were to taste test it, her fears would prove to be 100% foundless.
As a matter of point, my first attempt to make myself scrambled eggs with chopped up ham in it proved to be a disaster. Everything was in tiny bits and I had to grab a spoon in order to eat it. Then I had to tackle scraping the egg that had stuck to the bottom of Connie's frying pan (made out of stainless steel) and I was quickly coming to the conclusion that there would be no further eggs in my future unless I went to a restaurant to have them made for me.
After watching some youtube videos, I learned my mistakes, and the biggest of which was the suggestion to use a non-stick frying pan. So OK. Connie didn't have any of them. I know she had talked about it, but she was extremely health conscious (which in hindsight now seems to have been wasted effort on her part) and didn't like the idea of whatever was being used for the non-stick coating to contaminate our food. But I thought things had progressed quite a bit with that technology, so bought a set of non-stick pots and pans. My next attempt at scrambled eggs turned out pretty darn good, and cleanup was so easy it was laughable. Score one for the cooking newbie!
So, looking to make my forced cooking foray even easier, I began reading about air fryers. Not sure why Connie never got one of those, but perhaps it was the non-stick coating also in them, or it could just be that she was used to a conventional oven and didn't see any reason to change her cooking style. But I was intrigued. Cook things faster and easier? Well, right up my alley!
And off to Best Buy I went today and bought one. Had about the best reviews, so I bought a Ninja brand. And it would allow me to cook two different things at a time with different temps and cook times for each. Like shrimp in one basket and french fries in the other. Time it so they both would get done at the same time. Now that sounded like what I wanted.
Right now I am waiting for the "new appliance burn-in smell" to dissipate from the kitchen. It is actually quite strong and irritating. Kind of a combination of hot melting plastic and hot metal after welding. Not at all pleasant. And certainly nothing at all like what I would want food cooked in it to taste like. I have done two cycles so far, and yet the manual never mentioned doing this. I would have been quite upset had I wasted a couple pounds of shrimp in this thing to have them tasting like plastic and hot metal and be thrown in the garbage.
One thing (there will likely be more soon) that really puzzles me about this air fryer is that it is supposed to work by having fans blow hot air off of the heating coils over and around what you are cooking. That sounds all well and good, but this thing (and so did nearly every other air fryer I looked at) has incoming air vents and exhaust vents. So it is sucking in cool air, and blowing out the hot air. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't it be much more energy efficient to just circulate and recirculate the already heated air to do the cooking rather than having to constantly heat up all that cool air being drawn in while the hot air is exhausted out of it? Seems to me the device would use a whole lot less electricity that way plus get the food cooked much, much quicker. So what am I missing? Heck, maybe Connie knew about this and that is the reason she never got one. Sure wish I could ask her about it........
Anyway, might be a moot point if that odor doesn't go away REAL SOON. I will give it a day or so, but honestly with all that hot air being exhausted, it raises the temperature in the kitchen to blast furnace level. Which is OK in the winter months, but during the summer, well I might have to move it outside on the porch.
Soooo, not real impressed so far. Sometimes "easier" has substantial strings attached.
Since Connie passed away, her exclusive domain of the kitchen has passed on to me. And honestly, I never had any reason to learn how to cook beyond something that would pop into the microwave cold and come out hot. And frankly, had I attempted to foist that control from Connie, I seriously think a row would ensue with her agonizing over the thought that her cooking was not good enough for me. Which is patently false, of course, and I am sure had I attempted making a meal and she were to taste test it, her fears would prove to be 100% foundless.
As a matter of point, my first attempt to make myself scrambled eggs with chopped up ham in it proved to be a disaster. Everything was in tiny bits and I had to grab a spoon in order to eat it. Then I had to tackle scraping the egg that had stuck to the bottom of Connie's frying pan (made out of stainless steel) and I was quickly coming to the conclusion that there would be no further eggs in my future unless I went to a restaurant to have them made for me.
After watching some youtube videos, I learned my mistakes, and the biggest of which was the suggestion to use a non-stick frying pan. So OK. Connie didn't have any of them. I know she had talked about it, but she was extremely health conscious (which in hindsight now seems to have been wasted effort on her part) and didn't like the idea of whatever was being used for the non-stick coating to contaminate our food. But I thought things had progressed quite a bit with that technology, so bought a set of non-stick pots and pans. My next attempt at scrambled eggs turned out pretty darn good, and cleanup was so easy it was laughable. Score one for the cooking newbie!
So, looking to make my forced cooking foray even easier, I began reading about air fryers. Not sure why Connie never got one of those, but perhaps it was the non-stick coating also in them, or it could just be that she was used to a conventional oven and didn't see any reason to change her cooking style. But I was intrigued. Cook things faster and easier? Well, right up my alley!
And off to Best Buy I went today and bought one. Had about the best reviews, so I bought a Ninja brand. And it would allow me to cook two different things at a time with different temps and cook times for each. Like shrimp in one basket and french fries in the other. Time it so they both would get done at the same time. Now that sounded like what I wanted.
Right now I am waiting for the "new appliance burn-in smell" to dissipate from the kitchen. It is actually quite strong and irritating. Kind of a combination of hot melting plastic and hot metal after welding. Not at all pleasant. And certainly nothing at all like what I would want food cooked in it to taste like. I have done two cycles so far, and yet the manual never mentioned doing this. I would have been quite upset had I wasted a couple pounds of shrimp in this thing to have them tasting like plastic and hot metal and be thrown in the garbage.
One thing (there will likely be more soon) that really puzzles me about this air fryer is that it is supposed to work by having fans blow hot air off of the heating coils over and around what you are cooking. That sounds all well and good, but this thing (and so did nearly every other air fryer I looked at) has incoming air vents and exhaust vents. So it is sucking in cool air, and blowing out the hot air. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't it be much more energy efficient to just circulate and recirculate the already heated air to do the cooking rather than having to constantly heat up all that cool air being drawn in while the hot air is exhausted out of it? Seems to me the device would use a whole lot less electricity that way plus get the food cooked much, much quicker. So what am I missing? Heck, maybe Connie knew about this and that is the reason she never got one. Sure wish I could ask her about it........
Anyway, might be a moot point if that odor doesn't go away REAL SOON. I will give it a day or so, but honestly with all that hot air being exhausted, it raises the temperature in the kitchen to blast furnace level. Which is OK in the winter months, but during the summer, well I might have to move it outside on the porch.
Soooo, not real impressed so far. Sometimes "easier" has substantial strings attached.
