Oh, Right. That.

I don't think I told you I got an air fryer, but I got an air fryer.

People have been talking (and raving) about them for ages, I know.  Not everyone I know has them but the people who do swear by them.  I never really got the appeal.

I feel like maybe the early days of it it sort of sounded like... you know, a fryer, but just with less oil?  Or that's how I understood it anyway and fried things don't super agree with me (even though I like some of them!) so why would I want like fried stuff you know?

It was when I was chatting at a "coffee meet up" with some of the (yes, older) former aquafit class ladies that one of them (who lives alone) mentioned how easy it is for her to make a meal with her air fryer.  And I mean that's another thing.  Most of the people I know who have one have been making a meal for their family.  I'm just trying to feed me.  So this person told me how she just gets the meat and potatoes and veg and puts them in at different times and walks away and some part of my brain went like "you know you need to eat better, maybe this isn't as hard as using three pots and pans on the stove?"  

I felt inspired.

I looked into which air fryers weren't plastic (I didn't like the idea of heating my food in a plastic container with all that we're learning about plastics and our health) and I found one that is smaller in size (matters to me as I don't have a lot of free counter space and I really don't have any storage space in my kitchen even though I try to rearrange from time to time) and glass for the cooking "basket."

And I looked up some simple recipes and, well there's no "oil" involved other than what you might use to season your meat/whatever and so it's not, at least this one isn't, really "frying" at all.  It's kind of like a convection oven in a small space?  Not at all what I had pictured from the early days and the name.  

Mine isn't the tray kind, so I can't do the "slide it out and shake things part way through" that a lot of recipes call for, and mine isn't HUGE so I've yet to make like full meals with different foods in it, I mainly use it for the protein portion or just one thing and I'm still using the stove top for the whatever... the potatos or veg or both or whatever.  But for me it's taken a mental load off of "oh man I have to cook tonight and I can NOT be bothered" 

I'm still figuring it all out and what I enjoy and don't really enjoy eating (not loving chicken breasts even though I'm cooking them nicely) and I'm not saying I'm raving about it, but I'm saying it has been a help to me and taken away a mental barrier to cooking but I'm also kind of done with having, for example, chicken thighs, potatos and bok choi.... but baby steps right?  Right.