AIR FRYER FRIDAY - YouTube Fried Chicken

This week, I want to share a recipe from Youtube that I tried. Booger500us tried a recipe from another YouTuber. I will leave her video down below.  I'm also sharing a video I found after writing this post: check it out here:

First off, I didn't delineate from the original recipe except for two things. I left out a lot of the spices - using only Seasoning Salt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder and a dash of Black Pepper. While Bob loves KFC Original Recipe, he is not a 'spice' fan.  The other thing is that instead of the traditional pot styled air fryer, I used my Emeril 360.

When it comes to 'air frying' in the Emeril, I've not been happy. That said, I'm not giving up. I'll keep playing.

I rolled, I dipped and I spritzed with non-stick spray for moisture.  As you'll see in one of the pictures below, I still had flour residue that didn't 'fry'.

Air Fryer basket. Note the flour spots still visible

don't let the color fool you. The skin never did get 'crisp'

From the baking sheet on BAKE. 

This is after we'd removed the pieces from the pan so you'r seeing the side that was down. Still almost soggy.

You can tell the difference from the pieces to the left/ bottom that came from the air fryer basket

and the ones more on top/ left from the baking sheet.

The other thing I wasn't happy with is the overall texture. 

The legs were tough. They were cooked through and reached a temp of 165* but I couldn't pull most of the meat from the bone with my fingers.  I fought my way through one, ate way too many carbs (and my sugar number showed the result the next morinng)

I'm planning to toss the rest into a pan with some low-carb BBQ sauce and that will be my Air Fryer Friday post on March 27th.  I'll be using the slow cooker setting. 

In the mean time, I'm going to be looking at some of the recipes I get in my email from Emeril and see what happens in April. 

Do you have an Emeril Oven? What's been your experience?  Please share you stories in the comments below. 

Enjoy the Journey!

AIR FRYER FRIDAY - Hot dogs for breakfast?

If it's one thing Bob and I do well, it's turn leftovers into great tasting breakfasts. With that in mind, when I needed something for a breakfast sandwich a couple of weeks ago and didn't have any of your typical breakfast meats thawed out, I reached for the container of left-over grilled hot dogs.

I started by frying each of us an egg:

I left them a bit on the runny side so they would finish cooking in the oven. Just let them cook to this stage, stab the yolks and swirl them around in the whites, wait a minute then flip. Let them cook on that side lone enough to grab your plate.

Next, I cut the hot dogs lengthwise and warmed them in the pan just to give a bit of sear:

While I did this, Bob buttered four slices of Kings Sweet Hawaiian bread. 

Note: I discovered later that they should have been buttered LIGHTLY ;-) as the bread was a bit soft.

Bob layed 2 slices of the bread on the baking rack, then I transfered an egg on to each one then 4 of the hot dog strips. Bob added a slice of Velveeta then the remaining slices of bread.

We used the TOAST setting on the second highest darksection to get a good toast. As you can see from the picture below, one corner got a bit darker than the rest. Setting the amount of time selects your 'color' at the same time. So if you like your toast lightly toasted then you would watch your dark setting and go from there. 

I think part of the darkening came from the thickness of the sandwich, making it closer to the top element. We may not have had the issue if we'd just been doing 'toast'. 

This was the result:

After we removed them from the oven, we added slices of tomato.. the last from our garden harvest.

We would definitely make these again.

Keep in mind that any recipe you do the first time is going to bring you to a trial an error point. Keep a small notebook handy to write down what you did so next time you know where to make adjustments. 

Enjoy the Journey!

AIR FRYER FRIDAY - Emeril Everyday

Since I bought the Emeril 360, I get emails with great tips, recipes and suggestions. Last week, they pointed me to the Emeril Everyday AirFryer Community on Facebook.

Most of you know I am not a FB fan, but I figured this would be a great way to get tips/ tricks and ideas for foods I've not thought to try yet.

I'm crazy busy this week as I'm at a writers conference. So I'm posting this to make sure you have something fun and hopefully, interesting in my absence.

Click this LINK and come join the community!

~Enjoy the Journey!

AIR FRYER FRIDAY - BBQ Chicken Legs

Today's recipe came by mistake but sometimes those are the best kind of meals!

When I went shopping a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd purchased two bags of wind drummies to turn into BBQ wings. When I got home I realized I'd purchased two - #4 bags of full-sized chicken legs.

These legs weigh about #1/2 each. They are huge!

So I lined the drip tray with foil (this has become a habit for easier clean-up)
Then I lined the baking pan with foil as well... Again, that easy clean up factor.

I rolled each leg in BBQ sauce and placed on the baking sheet.
Position the rack on the BAKING level and turned the dial to BAKE.
I wanted these to cook slow so I set the temperature at 325* for 15 min. then hit start.

I've gotten in the habit of preheating BEFORE I put the pan in. I'm finding that putting the food in during the preheat tends to dry it out and not giving you a true cooking time reading.

When the little bell dinged that the oven was preheated, I slid the baking tray into place.
At the end of 15 minutes, I turned the legs over and went for about another 20  minutes.
You want an internal reading of 165*

While mine showed DONE both in temp and visuality near the bone, they still had a bit of tug. The two I have left over are in the small crock pot today with a bit of Peach Butter, 1/8 C of water and will simmer for awhile.

If you try any of my recipes, I'd love to hear from you! Let me know your results or if you do something different. We're all here to learn!

Enjoy the Journey!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

By the time you read this post, I will be scurrying around putting final touches to fall decor before Kitty and Steve arrive. 

I plan to make sure the porch is pretty then sit and enjoy a cup of fluffy coffee.
Since this is National Pancake Day, A couple of pancakes with homemade Peach Butter accompanied by a couple slices of bacon are on my breakfast menu.

I've put dinner in the air fryer.. I'll have the Rotisserie Pulled Pork in a future post.

I'm just going to Enjoy the Journey!

AIR FRYER FRIDAY - Bacon!!!!

Good morning, everyone!

Today begins a new series - Air Fryer Friday!

Bob and I invested in the new Emeril 360 Air Fryer.

I spend a lot of time cooking just for me so turning on the big gas oven to do something small just doesn't make sense. I'm heating up the house, forcing the AC to run more, which increases my power bill.

We had a small toaster oven. We bought it at an estate auction about 15 years ago for $5... so I had something to cook in when we were coming down to do the house remodel. We hadn't added appliances yet. I had a microwave and a cooler. We didn't want appliances in until we had the new floor in place.

Bob uses and Air Fryer on the boat and talked about getting one for the house so when I saw the Emeril 360, I thought this would be the perfect match for both of us.


For years I've cooked bacon in the micro-wave using this little Bacon magic. There was a period where I went through two pounds of bacon a day! I wore out one of these cookers. They allowed approximately 98% of the fat to drip off and left a chewy goodness.

The Emeril 360 gives me the same result but it's on the counter more at my level LOL. Our microwave sits up on a shelf above the stove and is a bit challenging for me to reach at times. 

The rack will hold 4-5 pieces at a time. Place the rack on the Air Fryer position. I went with their recommendation of 400* I believe.

After 10 minutes, this is the result:

I placed a double-fold of paper towel on the door before I pulled the rack out so that remaining drips didn't wind up on the glass door. This made for easy clean up.

You can also just see that I lined the drip tray with a double fold of aluminum foil. There isn't a lot of room to slide beneath the heating bars once you've put the foil on so just take your time and guide it in.

BIG TIP: If you do not have a dishwasher.. I know, I'm still a dinosaur - lol ... run a sink of Hot soapy water to put your drip tray and rack into as soon as you're finished. Clean up is so much easier.

While the bacon was cooking, I mixed up pancake batter and got out the cast iron skillet.

Not sure what I'll show next week. I did BBQ Chicken legs last night that turned out AMAZING! We did BBQ ribs and New York strip steaks... Like a dummy, I deleted them off my phone before I transferred them to the computer!

I hope you'll check out the air fryer and join me in testing out recipes!

What would you like me to test for a future post? Let me know in the comments below and I'll do  my best to accommodate!

Enjoy the Journey!