A friend sent me this conversion chart yesterday after I told her my oven had stopped working. I’m used to gas cookers and had no idea how the air fryer and oven compare.
It looks like air fryers use less power so perhaps this will save me money, I’m using my microwave more because I’m struggling with my Parkinsons disease, but I like things like jacket potato’s crispy brown on the outside. I also put it on in the winter to warm up the kitchen.
But I’ve bit the bullet and bought an air fryer. Wish me luck!
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
I have a strange ability to do with time. If I’m cooking something in the oven and set the timer for whatever length of time the dish needs cooking I will have an urge to get up and check the time at exactly one minute to go! It happens virtually every time. It’s weird.
Other timely abilities included knowing when my hubby was coming home from work no matter what time his shift ended. I could not relax until a few minutes before he got home. This was despite the time not being a regular thing and no phone calls (he wouldn’t use a mobile phone). (One of my cats was always waiting for me when I came home, the same thing?).
Finally, I can be sitting at traffic lights and if I count to ten, the lights will usually change before I finish counting. I’m not sure why but it seems to work say about 70% of the time.
My thoughts are that I’m living time backwards! I can’t understand how it works. I know we humans have ‘timing’ cells in our brains that regulate our ability to measure time. Perhaps my cells are very accurate? It’s a mystery.
I like cooking curries from scratch. I’m no expert though so I just make it up as I go along. I like vegetable curry so I’ll use butternut squash as a basic ingredient.
You have to take off the skin and deseed the squash. Then chop it into cubes. Meanwhile I put some oil in a pan and gently fry my spices. Mild curry powder, some crushed garlic, a bit of chilli (dried or powdered) and a bit of cinnamon or garam masala to give the curry a richer flavour. Sometimes I add this later so the taste is more noticeable.
Then I sautée (add a small amount of water to the oil) some chopped onion in the curry mix together with the squash. This takes a while to soften so I cook it on a low heat with a lid on.
As it softens I add other vegetables, like pak choi, mushrooms, beans, a bit of broccoli or some cabbage. I might add some potato chopped up. I keep an eye on the water content so it doesn’t dry out. I will also add tinned tomatos or tomato paste. As I say I just add in what is available at the time.
Before it’s fully cooked I usually do a small amount of boiled rice (brown or white) and serve the curry and rice with plain yoghurt.
I hope this makes sense, it’s not a recipe as such.
I always season with salt at the end, I don’t cook with it, as it gets absorbed into the food, and you can’t taste it as much but it can raise your blood pressure.
Snack or meal? Trying to remember I need to eat vegetables as well as carbs, stuff I bought for my hubby has sat in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I didn’t want to cook. Easier to just buy cheap takeaway food. But that’s not good.
My portion sizes are still for two. So I will have to cook, then freeze or chill half of it. I guess it’s less energy to cook once and maybe microwave half of it later? Trouble is food still takes the same time to cook even if I halve the amounts… Life is a pain, but I must keep goingn
Cooking. I don’t follow recipes but I can cook reasonable food. I like experimenting with flavours and my favourite treat is trifle,
Driving, I’m pretty good at driving, although developing cataracts may change this. Aging is such an annoying thing. I have good road awareness but I think I might go for an automatic car if I get another one.
Art, if you follow ti’s blog you will be aware of the art work that I do. I mainly use acrylic on canvas, but I sometimes paint in oils and watercolours and then digital art.
Reading? Is reading a skill? I’ve got over a thousand books on bookcases around the house. Reading helps keep my mind working. I don’t like reading devices, I prefer real books.
Singing, I have been a member of different choirs for several years now. It helps me take my mind off my worries. I have a quite deep speaking voice and sing low (alto/bass), I love singing in harmony. Life is making what you can of your talents.
A time to live, and a time to die, as the saying goes. We all sometimes need time to accomplish things. But then we need time to rest.
For some reason when I’m cooking I know exactly when to go back to the oven. The timer will invariably be at 1 minute to go. If I had waited longer the alarm would go off. I don’t know how I do it?
I’m always late, I somehow manage to leave five minutes later than I would need to, to be on time. I guess that is my procrastination.
I think I need time to sort myself out. Mire rest, less rushing.
Our pear tree grows lovely pears. These were sweet and juicy when they ripened. And big too. They are lovely baked into a pie or a cake, or just freshly sliced.
Pears seem to take ages to ripen, then suddenly they all get ripe at once. Five years ago we had a massive crop, this year much more meagre. Perhaps the tree blossom was too early, and the bees and other pollinators hadn’t emerged yet? Or maybe the wind blew the blossom off to soon. Hopefully next year will be a good crop?
Just turn the oven down to 5 and set it for another hour?
Muttering in the kitchen….
OK done it..
Beep beep beep…
Why is the alarm beeping? It shouldnt happen for an hour?
Well I set it. Let me come and look..
You always tell me what to do. But you need to listen.
The cooker has two alarms, so I presumed he had set the top oven alarm. I also could see 1:08 on it but this seemed to be indicating the time?
I reset that to 22:00 and set the alarm (I thought) foe an hour. But what confused me was the time had a bell on it. An alarm. I tried changing the time, it would only go up to 23:59?
What? Set everything to zero, I did that and the cooker switched itself off! There is a timer that Starts and Finishes while you are away from the cooker… I’m learning!
Eventually I got it sorted
I know why he struggled. We both need more practice at setting timers. I hope the food cooks OK
Just managed to cook! A simple recipe, two carrots chopped, half an aubergine chopped up, half a courgette (zucchini). I set a pan of basmati rice boiling while I put a couple of chicken breasts in another pan and fried them. Then I added the vegetables, added a large flat mushroom, added salt, oregano, and garlic granules. When the chicken was part cooked I cut it up into small chunks. I had some cooked mussels out of the fridge that had defrosted overnight, I added them to the food.
Then I deseeded a single chilli and added that, I spooned cooked rice into the pan and added half a tin of peeled plum tomatoes. In all everything cooked on a low heat for about half am hour.
Did I mention? I stood up to do it, put my crutches to one side. I felt a bit unbalanced, but I’ve got to try and do things. And the meal was lovely. Hubby carried the plates into the living room for me.
Mallaband-Brown 