I Blame Target!

I've mentioned here before that our son is working at the local Target store. He was even there early on Thanksgiving for 7 hours - in and out before the store's 5pm opening time. Because the light rail train he takes was on holiday schedule and didn't start until 2 hours after he was scheduled to be in, we woke up at 4am to drive him in. Because the trains only run one an hour on holidays we also drove in later on to pick him up and bring him home. Anyone who saw the Macy's parade that morning knows how cold and windy the weather was - we were so close to NYC you can see the Holland Tunnel exit from the Target parking lot. While we waited for him to get out we watched some buses pull into the lot and discharge a few bands and all their instruments - it seems Target gave them permission to park their cars in the lot while they were appearing in the parade and the buses took them back and forth to the city. At least the sight of all those happy faces kept us warm while the car shook in the cold wind!

So when Friday came and we volunteered to pick him up at work again, we made the decision to NOT wait in the cold car but to go inside and see how crazy the place was for Black Friday. Our son warned us months ago that if we ever go into the store and see him we're to totally ignore him, because he was going to ignore us. He was just as bad in kindergarten all those years ago! I think all kids are like that, no matter what their age. Anyway, we're roaming around the Home section, and turned to walk the other way when we saw our son approaching the area, as we'd been instructed to do. Imagine my surprise when he walked right up to us to tell us the Power XL Air Fryer, 7.5 quart, is on sale for half price as a 1 hour Doorbuster special, to go over and grab one before they're all gone (He put out over 100 and the pile was already down to under 20). He said not to worry about getting the employee discount - they were already told they can't use it on Doorbusters. He said he heard great things about this, to get it, NOW, he'll explain why later. 

Alright already! So we did. Good thing he insisted we grab it immediately - by the time we got to the display there were only 5 left. We paid for the fryer and headed out to the car, because now he had only 5 minutes until punch out.

When he came out we asked what that was all about, and he said he wants to start eating less pasta and more potatoes, and the gals at work were saying how great air fryers are for doing that. He knew I wasn't crazy about getting one, but at that price he couldn't pass it up.

Later that afternoon I moved my Instant Pot and my husband helped me unpack the air fryer. As soon as we opened the box it hit us - that weird chemical plastic smell! Oh, it's vile! It got worse after we unpacked it and took the plastic bags off! The instruction booklet seemed to know all about the odor and said the first thing to be done was washing all the pieces inside and out in hot soapy water, then do a few minutes of pre-heat to burn off the oils used as protection on the cooking surfaces.

So now we had a hot vile smell permeating the kitchen.

When the pieces cooled I washed the pan again in hot soapy water and did the pre-heat again. No change. (sigh) I turned on the kitchen ceiling fan, hoping it would at least dissipate the smell. Now the whole apartment smelled vile. When it turned off I pulled the plug, hoping the smell would go away by the time we woke up on Saturday.

Saturday morning we did our usual shopping trip, came home and put groceries away, and the kid went into his room and hubby went out for a walk. Now it's Potato Time! During one of the pre-heats on Friday I emptied out the junk, er, kitchen utensil, drawer and found what I was searching for - the French fry crinkle cutter! This is one of the few things I rescued from my parents kitchen after my mom died and my dad was packing up to move down the Jersey Shore area. He and my younger brother were never going to use it, and my dad was tossing out more than he packed, especially kitchen things. It's over 50 years old and as sharp as the day my mom bought it.

I already had a few white potatoes already cooked up in the refrigerator, leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, so off I went, slicing them all into crinkle cut fry shape.

I wanted to keep the inside of the air fryer as clean as I could so grabbed a hunk of parchment paper and cut it to size. I know the ones on Amazon made for this purpose all have holes, so I cut a few of them in the paper. OK, this will do until I order some. Since nobody sells them in oval shapes to fit this pan I'm stuck with 10 inch circles. That'll have to do. Before dumping the potatoes into the fryer pan I first seasoned them up with onion powder and garlic powder and shake, shake, shake. All set! Into the air fryer with the pan! I know Chef AJ starts all her air fryer recipes with 400º and 20 minutes, but to be safe I set my air fryer time for only 15 minutes and set a kitchen timer for 7 so I can shake them up mid-cooking. The final result:

My son and husband declared them "Perfect!" but I thought they were too crunchy. I'm the one who prefers my fries thin cut and limp. We all had some dunked in ketchup and my son said he'll probably make some later in the weekend for lunch or even dinner. He said he may wait until that smell was gone. It was as bad Saturday as it was Friday.

Since I needed to use the Instant Pot for dinner, the fryer got moved until the next morning, when I switched it with the Instant Pot so I could make up a batch of air fried Brussels sprouts. Again I grabed the parchment paper but don't bother with the holes. Instead of dumping the bag of sprouts and getting all those tiny leftover leaves, I grabbed the whole sprouts by the handful and put them, still frozen, into the pan. When I oven roast them, I do them at 400º. Sometimes I stop at 60, but prefer them cooked for 90 minutes. To air fry, once again I set it at 400º but for 10 minutes, then did a shake, then set it for another 10 minutes.

Beautiful! But a little too dry, drier than after 90 minutes in the oven. Next time I'll do 15 minutes.

Sunday I cooked up a load of russet potatoes in the Instant pot and have a bunch in the refrigerator to make more fries later for lunch. I'll probably cut them into slices, like fat Ruffles, this time. That is, if there are any left after my son makes his pile of spuds for his lunch. Good thing I bought an extra bag of potatoes at the store Saturday.

Now let's see how long it takes for my joints to start aching from all these potatoes. I know I can do 2 potatoes twice a week and be okay. If I do make some up for lunch for myself it'll be the first time in a year or so I had potatoes 2 days in a row. Keep your fingers crossed!

Noon, same day.

I thought I uploaded this earlier. Oops. At least now I can add this. My son said he was ready to learn how to use the fryer. I sat at the table and just said - "Plug it in." He looked at it and realized there was nothing to learn - just the time and temp for whatever he was going to cook. I told him how I did yesterday's spuds and he was satisfied. He then dismissed me, grabbed the baggie of pre-cooked russets from the fridge, sliced up 4 of them, sprinkled a bit of onion and garlic powders and a decent amount of salt, saw I already had a fresh parchment paper in the basket and dumped the spuds in, and within 20 minutes was already in his room eating his lunch. He already asked me to make sure I always have cooked potatoes in the refrigerator, that he may even make these (minus the onions and garlic) in the mornings before work as breakfast and toss any leftovers in a container to bring to work for lunch.

Yep, he's been bitten by the potato bug. Wait until I make the first batch of BBQ chickpeas or onion rings! 

And as long as the cutting board was still out and the fryer hot, I cut up a batch for my own lunch. As long as I don't over-cook them like yesterday, I think I'm going to enjoy this appliance. I'm glad I held out so long and didn't grab a small one 2 years ago when everyone else jumped on the air fryer band wagon. This made better fries than I could have in the oven or my old convection toaster oven. This one is a good size. Even if I did buy a Breville I would have had to buy the second tray to make enough potatoes for a meal for 2 or more.

Oops, again. I thought I uploaded this the other day. I guess between all the appointments we had earlier this week I just forgot.

Since I wrote the above, I've made air fried potatoes every day for lunch except yesterday, both Russets and Yukon Golds. I had some leftover soup from the night before to eat, and also thought I might be eating too many potatoes and felt I should take the day off. The expected increase in joint pain never happened, to my surprise. My son has also been making himself fries every evening. And this morning I woke up and noticed some potatoes missing from the refrigerator - I guess he made another batch of fries for his breakfast while we were sleeping. The guy wakes up close to 2am and leaves the house before 5 every day so he had plenty of time. Beats grabbing a snack from the vending machines at work when he gets there.

Right now I have some peeled Russets in the Instant Pot and plan to make the potato patties shown in this video. I took 4 cooked Russets and mashed them with a generous sprinkling of Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb spice mix and made a total of 9 potato patties. They're in the air fryer right now @ 400º and my timer is set for 15 minutes.



I don't like things as crunchy as she does, so after I flip I'll only cook them another 3 minutes or so. The final result:

2 front, one flip side (after 3 minutes)

Oh, and I hopped on the scale this morning, just for shits and giggles, as Austin Powers says. I'm down 2 pounds since Monday! This is the first time I've lost weight eating as much as I want without being in the throes of bronchitis or the flu. Holy f-ing s***! Now I really hope I'm over my sensitivity to spuds and can continue eating as many as I want!

Even if I do start getting all those joint pains again from eating so many potatoes, I still say this was a great purchase based solely on the fact that my son is now eating less junk food and more healthy ones. He'll probably fry up some of those potato patties when he gets in as a snack before dinner today. Maybe I can interest him in bringing potato patty sandwiches for lunch instead of the peanut butter ones he's bringing in now. A mom can dream, right?