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Yesterday I made chicken parmesan with the air fryer! Honestly, that was the highlight of my day.
We've been looking for excuses to use the air fryer more often. It takes up real estate in our kitchen, and Sneppers bought it for me so we could expand our dinner repertoire. The trouble is that we've found oven-baking to be a superior way to get great char on vegetables, or crispy potatoes, or what-have-you.
The one place where the air fryer *really* shines is breaded chicken. The meat comes out wonderfully tender, surrounded by amazingly crisp breading, so when the recipe calls for it no other appliance will do. Now that I'm thinking about it, pork chops feel like a natural next experiment for it.
I found a good air fryer recipe for the chicken parm, which is relatively basic. Season your chicken, coat it in seasoned flour, dredge in a beaten egg, then coat with the breading -- which was a mix of panko, fresh-grated parmesan, oregano, and crushed red pepper. I got thin-sliced chicken breast on special at Lucky, so I prepped five of them to have for leftovers.
I could have used a jar of pasta sauce, but I wanted to see how easily I could whip up a quick marinara at home. The answer? Pretty easily! I just had to dice half a yellow onion, toss in a saucepan with oil until softened, hit with minced garlic until you get that nice toasty smell, then pour in a can of crushed plum tomatoes, salt, pepper, and oregano. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in fresh basil after you've turned off the heat.
I picked up a pack of refrigerated pasta to bring the whole dish together, and that was that! It turned out really well; the pasta was rich with a nice, firm bite that worked well with the sharp, sweet tang of the marinara sauce. What I liked most is how the flavor profile of the sauce changed compared with the pasta and chicken. With the pasta, the sauce tasted almost jammy; it really made the tomatoes the star of the dish. But with the chicken, the parmesan and mozzarella corralled the sweetness of the sauce to emphasize its smooth, umami texture while the diced onions brought more complexity to the crunchy, chewy protein. The breasts were cooked really well, just enough to be fully-done but not dried out or rubbery.
All in all, a success! If I had it to do over, I'd toss the pasta with a little bit of olive oil and maybe some chopped parsley to really round out that dish.
I got to open my first two birthday presents yesterday -- a marble salt cellar and a ceramic butter bell! I've been wanting a salt cellar for a while now; I get how to season food in cooking at this point, and a cellar is one of those tools that feels helpful for really nailing those levels. The butter bell is something I've never seen before, but feels immediately useful! Basically, the lid has this...egg-sized cup on the other side where softened butter is meant to hang out. Every three days, you fill the bottom of the container with fresh cold water, then place the softened butter upside down inside. The cold water fills the space between the butter cup and the sides of the jar to keep it nice and fresh and cool, so it's at the perfect spreadable texture for up to two weeks!
I tried it out this morning with a bagel, and it works well! A *little* water got into the butter, but I think that's on me for picking it up carelessly. Overall, I think it makes it way more likely I'll have some buttered toast with afternoon tea. :9
I'll be running my Unlicensed Adventures D&D game this afternoon. It's the second of two planned sessions back at the starter area; I had wanted it to be a bit of a "reset" to establish the people they've met there as resources of a specific sort, clarify any dangling plot threads still hanging, and give the PCs a little bit of breathing room after the rather intense events of the last few games. I made a couple mistakes introducing some new elements last time, mostly because I underestimated just how distrustful I had made my players. It took me a while to see, but most folks I've set up as allies have serious downsides in terms of likability and competence, so I have some work to do making the guys feel like they have a support network they can rely on.
I want to use this game to encourage the players to think pro-actively about how to attack the plot, but I also want to find a way to make sure we're all on the same page about what needs to happen next. I can have a bad habit of stacking hooks on top of one another without paying them off, so it makes folks feel like they're drowning in this quicksand of quest markers. First up, I'd like to clarify the adventure a little bit to make sure everyone knows what's been done, how it's changed things, and what needs to be done next.
This weekend, I'll be spending Saturday with Wahson to celebrate our one-year friendship anniversary. It's...been a hard few months for him and I'm hoping this will help settle things a bit. I think he's a good egg, but for various reasons the damage with the rest of our friend group is too much to repair. It saddens me, but there's not much I can (or should) do about it. I'm doing my best to maintain my equanimity and check the impulse to meddle.
We've been looking for excuses to use the air fryer more often. It takes up real estate in our kitchen, and Sneppers bought it for me so we could expand our dinner repertoire. The trouble is that we've found oven-baking to be a superior way to get great char on vegetables, or crispy potatoes, or what-have-you.
The one place where the air fryer *really* shines is breaded chicken. The meat comes out wonderfully tender, surrounded by amazingly crisp breading, so when the recipe calls for it no other appliance will do. Now that I'm thinking about it, pork chops feel like a natural next experiment for it.
I found a good air fryer recipe for the chicken parm, which is relatively basic. Season your chicken, coat it in seasoned flour, dredge in a beaten egg, then coat with the breading -- which was a mix of panko, fresh-grated parmesan, oregano, and crushed red pepper. I got thin-sliced chicken breast on special at Lucky, so I prepped five of them to have for leftovers.
I could have used a jar of pasta sauce, but I wanted to see how easily I could whip up a quick marinara at home. The answer? Pretty easily! I just had to dice half a yellow onion, toss in a saucepan with oil until softened, hit with minced garlic until you get that nice toasty smell, then pour in a can of crushed plum tomatoes, salt, pepper, and oregano. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in fresh basil after you've turned off the heat.
I picked up a pack of refrigerated pasta to bring the whole dish together, and that was that! It turned out really well; the pasta was rich with a nice, firm bite that worked well with the sharp, sweet tang of the marinara sauce. What I liked most is how the flavor profile of the sauce changed compared with the pasta and chicken. With the pasta, the sauce tasted almost jammy; it really made the tomatoes the star of the dish. But with the chicken, the parmesan and mozzarella corralled the sweetness of the sauce to emphasize its smooth, umami texture while the diced onions brought more complexity to the crunchy, chewy protein. The breasts were cooked really well, just enough to be fully-done but not dried out or rubbery.
All in all, a success! If I had it to do over, I'd toss the pasta with a little bit of olive oil and maybe some chopped parsley to really round out that dish.
I got to open my first two birthday presents yesterday -- a marble salt cellar and a ceramic butter bell! I've been wanting a salt cellar for a while now; I get how to season food in cooking at this point, and a cellar is one of those tools that feels helpful for really nailing those levels. The butter bell is something I've never seen before, but feels immediately useful! Basically, the lid has this...egg-sized cup on the other side where softened butter is meant to hang out. Every three days, you fill the bottom of the container with fresh cold water, then place the softened butter upside down inside. The cold water fills the space between the butter cup and the sides of the jar to keep it nice and fresh and cool, so it's at the perfect spreadable texture for up to two weeks!
I tried it out this morning with a bagel, and it works well! A *little* water got into the butter, but I think that's on me for picking it up carelessly. Overall, I think it makes it way more likely I'll have some buttered toast with afternoon tea. :9
I'll be running my Unlicensed Adventures D&D game this afternoon. It's the second of two planned sessions back at the starter area; I had wanted it to be a bit of a "reset" to establish the people they've met there as resources of a specific sort, clarify any dangling plot threads still hanging, and give the PCs a little bit of breathing room after the rather intense events of the last few games. I made a couple mistakes introducing some new elements last time, mostly because I underestimated just how distrustful I had made my players. It took me a while to see, but most folks I've set up as allies have serious downsides in terms of likability and competence, so I have some work to do making the guys feel like they have a support network they can rely on.
I want to use this game to encourage the players to think pro-actively about how to attack the plot, but I also want to find a way to make sure we're all on the same page about what needs to happen next. I can have a bad habit of stacking hooks on top of one another without paying them off, so it makes folks feel like they're drowning in this quicksand of quest markers. First up, I'd like to clarify the adventure a little bit to make sure everyone knows what's been done, how it's changed things, and what needs to be done next.
This weekend, I'll be spending Saturday with Wahson to celebrate our one-year friendship anniversary. It's...been a hard few months for him and I'm hoping this will help settle things a bit. I think he's a good egg, but for various reasons the damage with the rest of our friend group is too much to repair. It saddens me, but there's not much I can (or should) do about it. I'm doing my best to maintain my equanimity and check the impulse to meddle.
