So, I bought an air fryer.

I picked up a 5.8Qt basket style Cosori Air Fryer from Amazon.ca, and so far, I’m liking what it can do. I’ve only figured out three things (four if you include ice cream making) things you can’t do with an air fryer (cook pasta noodles, make rice, and pop popcorn properly), so the world is still my oyster. 🙂

I resisted getting another air fryer for years but after I realised they had changed so much, I was open to the idea of getting one. This time, instead of someone else picking a hot new small kitchen appliance for me as a gift, I wanted to do some research, set a criteria, and find a machine that satisfied my budget of the $100-150 mark. And I did it.

I was looking for a small in height, but big in capacity, machine that allows me to do loads of different food types and to do a lot of each in one go. I love to cook once, and eat at least three times.

I was also looking for something with easy dials I could move with my hands versus pushing buttons. Pushing buttons all day at work has me longing for the old days of dials for some reason. And I wanted a basket versus a toaster oven style. I wanted to shake up my food at the half way mark, not take a whole tray out and flip food. I also carefully looked at the clean up for both styles out there, and for me, the basket was a no-brainer. This machine is very easy to clean. And I have loads of accessories kicking around I can use in the basket when it comes to food types like baking an egg in a silicone muffin cup as I roast tater tots in the basket around it.

First night I had it, I made toast first (to check out any hot spots, and to rid me of that new machine smell. After that, of course I made frozen French fries in it. D-uh! I managed to burn AND dehydrate them because I’m not a big fan of cooking or baking fries, so I got the temp and time all wrong. Hee.

And then I tried my hand at the only recipe in the manual that interested me: apple fritters. There weren’t bad, but they could be so much better! The don’t store well, so if you make these, share them with others as soon as you pour your glaze over top. Tasty. the texture needs work, but the flavours are good enough.

I’ve had this fryer for just shy of two weeks, and I tend to do things like grilled cheese sandwiches (a fave in this house), roasted tots using smoked baked potatoes the next day (amazing), and muffins using a mix and some add-ins (dead easy). I also tried to cook dumplings in it but I overshot the temp and time, and it came out like so frail Pavlova cookies. Ugh.

A couple of days ago I tried my hand at jammy and hard boiled eggs. The first attempt didn’t produce fully cooked yet jammy eggs, and the hard version had brow spots on the egg white after the shell was cracked open. I am not deterred. I will crack this mystery. (See what I did there? Oh, you did? I’ll show myself out now.)

Today I made enchiladas after I roasted a jalapeno, a Shepard’s pepper, and a yellow pepper to make a very good salsa. I used the salsa to hold the filling together and then I smeared a bit on each tortilla before laying down the filling and cheese. I will do a post on this separately soon.