Sunday Dinner

Hey y'all! This week has been CRAZY! I worked my regular shift (eight hours) Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday through Friday I worked ten hour shifts each day to make up for the snow day I took Friday. It wore me out! Saturday I took a trip to Huntington for Phi Delta Chi initiation and to see my parents and sister. I loved getting to spend time with them even if it wasn't for very long. I didn't get back to Lexington until pretty late Saturday night, so you can imagine my excitement to have a relaxing Sunday. Tyler and I made a quick Costco run, picked up a few things from WalMart, and got my car washed. We came back home and did the closest thing to relaxing.. sit on the couch and do homework LOL Hey, I'll take what I can get!

For lunch, we had some potato soup from Costco. We LOVE it. We also buy their chicken tortilla soup. It's pre-made, so you just have to heat it up in the microwave or on the stove. If you leave them unopened, you can keep them in the refrigerator for several months. They are the perfect size for two people to share. I put the soup on the stove and put some bacon in the air fryer. My cousin, Michelle, sent me a picture of bacon she had made in her air fryer, and it looked so good! I just had to try it! The bacon grease dripped to the bottom, and the bacon was as crispy as ever. It was delicious! I crumbled up the bacon and put it in with the soup. YUM! I also made some homemade sweet tea. I'll put my recipe for that at the end of this post! FYI: It is true that sweet tea tastes better out of a mason jar filled with ice! Just throwing that out there!

After more homework, I decided to cook us a good Sunday dinner since through the week I usually just make quick/easy dinners. We had fried chicken (made in the air fryer), homemade buttermilk biscuits, and sweet potato casserole. The chicken recipe I use is from a cookbook I picked up in Charleston, South Carolina. It is called "Carolina Family Reunion Fried Chicken."  Normally when I make it, I fry it in vegetable or canola oil. Since I just got my new air fryer, I wanted to see how chicken would cook in it. I have mixed feelings about it. I could fit three pieces of chicken in my XL air fryer, so I had to cook it in two batches. When I fry chicken, I make lots of extra pieces for Tyler to heat up later because he loves it so much! I let the chicken soak for several hours in buttermilk, then I coated it with flour and other spices and placed it in the air fryer. I cooked it on 360 degrees for 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the breading on the chicken stuck to the fryer, so I lost some of the crispy part on the back side of the chicken. For the next batch, Tyler had the brilliant idea of putting a light coat of olive oil using a basting brush over top of the flour to keep the breading from sticking. It didn't completely solve the problem, but the second batch was much better than the first! I am going to do a little research on this to see how others fry chicken in the air fryer. All in all, it was good. The chicken was moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside. Also, neither of us could tell a difference in the taste of the chicken, which is the most important part. It truly did taste the same as when I deep fry it in oil! I am still trying to get the hang of cooking with the air fryer, so I'm sure with more practice, I can find a good way to fry chicken in it! 

So check out my "biscuits" LOL I tried making biscuits last weekend with regular milk instead of buttermilk, and they just weren't very good. This time I used buttermilk and decided to make "drop biscuits" instead of rolling them out and using a mason jar lid to cut them into circles. BIG mistake (pun intended). Y'all, these things are huge. I put them in the oven, and they just kept growing LOL You can imagine my surprise when the oven timer went off, and I saw these.. they're the size of my head LOL Tyler said they would be perfect to pour gravy over haha! They were actually very tasty, but I couldn't even finish half of one LOL Oh well, you live and you learn! 

Sweet potato casserole 

Air Fried Chicken 

Southern Sweet Tea Recipe

3 Lipton iced tea family size bags

1 and 1/2 cups of Domino sugar

1/8 teaspoon of baking soda

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Place the tea bags in a pitcher and add the baking soda. Pour the boiling water over the tea bags and let them steep for about 5-6 minutes. Remove the tea bags and pour in the sugar. Stir until it dissolves. Add another 4 cups of cold water to the pitcher. Refrigerate and enjoy! * This tea is a little strong and VERY sweet so adjust the recipe to your taste. *

I hope y'all enjoyed this quick blog post! Until next time.. take care! 

Deep frying with... air?!

Hey y'all! Several of you have asked me to do a quick review on the new air fryer I got the other day. This evening I used it for the first time to "deep fry" frozen french fries. Before I get into this post, I'll be up front and tell you that it is AMAZING! I'm also going to do a quick review on the NuWave oven, which I have been using non-stop lately! Tyler's grandma Barbara got it for us for Christmas two years ago, and I use it for EVERYTHING! The NuWave and now the Philips Air Fryer are definitely going to be staples in my kitchen!

What is so important to me (and I'm sure to all of you too) is saving time. When I get home from working all day, the last thing I feel like doing is staying in the kitchen all evening to make a meal that Tyler and I will eat in 15 minutes. Also, I like to keep the kitchen as clean as possible while I cook to reduce clean up time afterwards. The NuWave and Air Fryer meet both of these requirements of cooking quickly and without a mess!

The NuWave cooks just about anything without the need to preheat. It has a rack that mimics a grill, and when you cook meat in it, any fat/grease from the meat drips off of the grill rack to the bottom of the oven. I can come home from work, put frozen chicken in the NuWave, and in 15 minutes have it completely cooked without waiting for it to preheat. Today I made burgers and fries for a quick dinner. I bought pre-packaged frozen hamburger patties, and I put them in the NuWave. It automatically sets the cook temperature to 350 degrees, and I set the timer to 9 minutes for burgers. It comes with a guide telling you how long to cook your meat which depends on if it is fresh or frozen. After 9 minutes, I sprinkled a hamburger seasoning on the patties then flipped them. Then, I let them cook for another 9 minutes, and after they cooked, I put some cheese on them. I always line my NuWave with aluminum foil to make cleanup that much easier! I have wrapped potatoes in foil and cooked them in the NuWave, and they were delicious! Also, the NuWave comes with special pans that allow you to bake brownies, cakes, etc. using the NuWave. It is a huge time saver and so convenient!

Frozen Hamburger Patties

Cooking in the NuWave

Cooked Patties with Seasoning

Finished Product

Now, for the part you all have waited for... the Air Fryer. I am going to be completely honest with y'all. I burned the first batch of fries.. bad! They were jet black when I took them out of the fryer. I showed Tyler, and said, "Well, it works!" LOL We were cracking up. I made another batch and turned the temperature down and decreased the cook time. The second round was much better than the first. The Air Fryer took less than 2 minutes to pre-heat, and I cooked the fries for 7 minutes. They were very crunchy/crispy, and I honestly couldn't tell a difference as far as taste and texture is concerned. I didn't use any oil at all. I've been reading if you use fresh potatoes instead of frozen, you should coat the fries in about a teaspoon of olive oil before putting them in the fryer. I also put our hamburger buns in the air fryer for 1 minute, and it toasted the bread perfectly! I am already convinced this was a good purchase! I use my deep fryer A LOT for potatoes, hash browns, chicken wings... you name it, I have fried it LOL and if you need more convincing that this is the greatest thing ever, I found a recipe on Pinterest for homemade cinnamon sugar donuts in the air fryer. I told Tyler they HAVE to be healthy because you aren't using grease to make them.. right? Right!

Disclaimer: Do NOT cook your frozen fries on 390 degrees for 20 minutes LOL

These are the fries still frozen going into the Air Fryer

Finished Product with Lawry's Seasoned Salt

Toasting the Hamburger Buns

This is Tyler's Dinner Plate: A cheeseburger with onion straws, Hellman's mayonnaise, and a dash of BBQ sauce.. it's all about balance y'all! LOL All those toppings are okay because the fries were made without grease LOL

All in all, I would most definitely recommend the Air Fryer. We got an amazing deal on ours. We went into Williams-Sonoma and saw they were having a 50% off sale. We asked the cashier to get us one, and when he went in the back, they were sold out of the ones on sale. There is an XL version and a smaller version of the Philip's Air Fryer. The main difference is the size/capacity of the tray.  The smaller version was the one they had marked down to 50% off. We were so lucky because he ended up giving us the XL version for the sale price of the smaller one. It was just meant to be for us to have an Air Fryer! I plan to make some chicken wings in it soon, and I really want to try stuffed banana peppers! I will post about anything else I make in the Air Fryer. I hope y'all enjoyed this quick post on the NuWave and Air Fryer. Until next time.. Take care!