Made this one a few weeks ago, but I keep going back to it when I’m feeling lazy. This, and that great cheese toasts. Both are the ultimate lazy girl solo dinner.
Anyway, the trick to getting a good toast colour is buttering the bread on both sides of the bread. Sometimes I use mayo since it has a fat component in it already. Either will colour the bread nicely.
I typically cook this at 400* over a small sheet of tin foil for about 6-8 mins for a crispy exterior.
Hands down, this is the best tomato soup I have ever eaten. I was never a fan of Campbell’s tomato soup, and I can only recall a few times I tried to make my own with mediocre to horrible results. The difference, for me, is the roasting of the vegetables.
In a bowl, I tossed quartered 1 pint of cherry tomatoes, one shallot, a glub of olive oil, S&P, 1 tbsp dry basil (rubbed between my palms), and three baby garlic cloves (the ones that tuck in between the full size cloves in a head of garlic).
I laid a sheet of tin foil in the basket and dumped the mix in to roast on 375*F for 15 mins. Look how gorgeous this turned out! * swooning *
While this cooled off a bit, I set up the cheesy toasts to bake in the air fryer for 8 mins. I had pizza cheese kicking about, so I used that on the top side after I buttered both sides of a sliced up Portuguese bun. All of these decisions were the right decisions. Look at the colour on that cheese when they were finished! Love.
I blitzed the mixture for five seconds alone before adding the chicken stock. I love rustic soups, so I barely ran it longer than 30 seconds, but if I were in the mood for silky smooth, I’d go longer to, say, 90 seconds or more. I would stop when I reached that texture.
And then I put it all together. I had a hard time resisting the urge to scarf it all down before I got the photos I wanted for this post. I was really hard to resist. I can’t stress that enough! 😉
Using a container of Pillsbury Dough crescent rolls, I made some cute cinna bun bombs that I filled and glazed. The husband ate them up! Here’s how I did it:
Cinna Bun Bombs:
1 can Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, in tact
4 tbsp Sugar + 1 tea Ground Cinnamon
Unpack the crescent roll, but don’t unroll the dough. Cut the roll into eight pieces. Turn them on their side and push down on them to flatten them out to about 1 1/2″ discs. Shape the discs so they are round and flattened.
Drop each disc into a bowl of the mixed sugars and roll it around to coat the whole outside. Place the discs into the preheated air fryer basket to bake for 10 mins at 325*F.
When bombs are cooled off, make glaze and pour it over the tops. This is a quick set glaze, so you can pack it up within 20 mins for transporting.
Glaze:
1/8 tea Ground Cinnamon
60 g Powdered Sugar
15 mL Whole Milk (or 18% cream)
Optional: You can fill the bombs by making a deep cavity hole and piping your own pasty cream in.
Roasted chicken and roasted carrots. Cooked the bird at 350* for 45+ mins, and the roasted carrots on their own 10 mins. Oil and spices on the bird, oil + salt + parsley on the veg. Simple, and delicious. Just the way I like it.
I made a lot of the same things I’ve already made, and I also went back to try the Chocolate Croissants again because I wanted to play with the times.
Instead of the typical 350-400* bake, I dropped it down to 300-320* for ten mins using a can of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and a crushed up Flaky chocolate bar. Nailed it!
I also saw this video recipe for Lemon-Pepper Wings and decided I needed to try it since the flavourings were right up our alley. I mean, lemon and pepper? C’mon! So I used frozen chicken parts that I coated in seasonings and then in flour. I dropped them in the basket and flipped once half way, cooking them at 400* the whole time ( 8 mins + 8 mins).
The recipe called for rolling them around in some melted butter with the lemon-pepper blend, and they were fantastic. What I didn’t like was how the butter made the crisp texture straight from the air fryer soggy. :-\ I will definitely make these wings again but I will roll them in the lemon-pepper dry seasonings before I cook them and forgo the butter bath altogether.
And if that doesn’t work, I will dust the crispy wings in the lemon-pepper seasonings as a rub after they come out of the air fryer all hot and crispy.
Yes, I know. I need better lighting for my pictures. I agree. I have a ring light but my kitchen is still largely a mess from the unexpected repairs the husband had to do in there, and my ring light is buried in a corner right now. Oh, well.
I made 4 dozen mini meatballs the other night because I needed to use up the medium ground beef I bought two days beforehand. I had other materials I needed to use or lose them at the same time, so this what I decided to make to test out my air fryer.
PS: I paired them with this lovely red pesto sauce I bought a few months back.
Italian Meatballs:
1 kg Med Ground Beef
1/2 C Italian Seasoned Breadcrumbs (optional, for bulking out the filling only)
1/4 C Parm Cheese, grated
1 Egg
3 Shots Hot Sauce (optional)
2 Tbsp Dried Parsley
S&P
I used this meatball tool from my late MIL’s house. It scoops up the perfect mini meatball size portions.
I bought some shallow foil pans from the dollar store that fit my 10″x10″ basket perfectly, and they ended up holding 16 balls each, so that helped speed up this whole cooking process unlike cooking meatballs on the stovetop in a skillet. I am not a fan of making meatballs on the stovetop and finishing them in the oven. Too much splatter to clean up. Not with the air fryer!
I cooked each tray of balls in their first runs at 320*F for ten mins with a gentle shake of the pan (not the basket), and for their second run I blasted them at 400* for the last five mins. I temped them before blasting and again when they finish (to verify they did at some point hit 165*).
Sorry, been busy at home with some home projects that came up unexpectedly, and work, and… air frying everything that’s not nailed down, of course! LOL
Here are a few things in picture form. I’ll do posts for each item but it’s getting late tonight, so here is round up to look at for now:
Sausage
Pumpkin Pie (warmed up only)
48 Mini Meatballs
Chicken Enchiladas
Lasagna Sandwich
Onion Rings
Lasagna
Crispy Chicken Strips
This was a great sausage, cooked perfectly in the air fryer at 350 for about…12 mins.
This store bought pie was cold when we brought it home, so I dropped it in the basket after I made dinner and unplugged it, just to warm up using the residual heat. Lovely.
Homemade Italian meatballs, cooked at 320*F for about 10 mins, shaken a bit once, temped at about 158*F before being blasted at 400*F for another five mins to finish them off perfectly giving them the deep colour I was looking for.
These chicken enchiladas were the bomb! I loved how fast these came together, and how tasty they were. I made a lot of them over a few days to use up all of the materials and to get it out of my system before turning to other things I want to try in the air fryer.
I saw this idea for a lasagna sandwich on Tik-Tok, so of course I had to make them. I regret nothing! 🙂
These store bought frozen onion rings took me two tries to nail. I sprayed them the first time as I dropped them in the basket, and they were soggy after 20 mins at 400*F. The second time, I dropped them frozen in the basket and cooked them for 10 mins at 350*F, and then flipped them and cranked the temp up to 400* for the last 7-ish mins.
I made a LOT of lasagna sauce for the lasagna sandwiches, so I baked a lasagna in the foil pan to use it all up. The thing I learned was a thick lasagna is NOT the way to go. Two shallow pans of lasagna cooked back-to-back for something like 20 mins at around 350*F would have been a better idea. I will have to test this again in the future.
I love my chicken nuggies, so of course I love chicken strips, too. I love them breaded and crispy, on a bun, with lettuce/tomato/sauce. So good. 🙂 These were also really good dipped in fridge door sauce whipped up on the fly.
Made these tonight. Brilliant hack to get the materials assembled quickly, too. I watched a video online that illustrated if you buy store grade puff pastry, roll it out a bit, and crush up a Flaky chocolate bar to sprinkle over the middle of it, you two can cut up the triangles and roll the croissants in no time at all.
I baked five in the air fryer as a test of temps and times, and while I was doing there, three were sitting on the counter the whole time. What I didn’t realise was how much bigger they would be once I baked them because they had 20 mins to proof. Nice.
I used a liner in the basket and sprayed a bit of oil down for the bottoms to brown, and added a bit to the tops while using a pastry brush to make sure I got good coverage.
I baked them at 350* for 12 mins, jacked up the heat to 400* and baked them another 6 mins to get them to an internal temp of 205* – 210*. (This ensures the middles don’t come out undercooked.) But I think the next time I do these, I will bake them at 325* for 15 mins and then play with the temp for a bit of browning. I think I went too far with this batch.
Don’t overdo the time and temp because you will burn the chocolate as you attempt to brown the outside. The goal is to cook the croissants about 170*, and then go after the colour.
