🐧🐧CURMUDGEONS' CORNER XXI🐧🐧

Dovefromabove · January 2023

Glad you’re feeling better @wild edges … my son had a similar lurgy a couple of weeks before Christmas … it knocked him sideways for a bit … and he didn’t have children helping him to recover 😉

Lyn · January 2023

It’s just taken my OH a month to get better, the cough was awful.
My cousin’s mate has been in hospital since Christmas but that’s with COVID (vaccinated)

wild edges · January 2023

Last night my wife went to bed and text me to say the bedroom light had blown the bulb. We just used the lamps rather than mess about changing bulbs and making noise. This morning she woke me up to tell me that the fridge-freezer wasn't working and after a bit of testing it turned out that the microwave was tripping a fuse that only controls the upstairs lights and the kitchen power circuit. That might be designed to alert a savvy home owner that the freezer isn't working before they go to bed

Luckily the freezer is rammed full of stuff and didn't defrost at all so we got away with it this time. The microwave is probably knackered though but it is about 20 years old. Does anyone know if the new combo microwave/air-fryers are worth looking at? I'm always wary of combi stuff as there's more to go wrong.

Ergates · January 2023

Wild edges, I’d be wary of the combined microwave / convection ovens, having had a couple over the years. One of the big benefits to me of the microwave is that they are very easy to keep clean, just a quick wipe inside. Once you use the heating element, stuff tends to get baked on, like a conventional oven. I’ve had an air fryer for the past year, and would say that one of those, plus an ordinary microwave oven, meet most of my cooking needs, when I don’t need to put the big oven on. Mind you, there are only two of us, probably different as you have children. However, the air fryer can be very handy if you are cooking separate meals for kids teatime, followed by civilised grown ups dinner when they’ve gone to bed?
My airfryer has two compartments, good for fishfingers in one, and chips / jacket potato in the other?

rowlandscastle444 · January 2023

I'm also wary of the combi items. Our m/w broke a year ago. The replacement didn't work well, so we sent it back. Now we've managed a whole year without a m/w, but the wife is thinking of looking again - mainly to do her porridge in the morning!

JennyJ · January 2023

We had a combi microwave, but we only ever used the microwave settings so when it packed up we replaced it with an ordinary microwave. Much cheaper, and does what we need it to (mostly defrosting things, warming things up, cooking porridge, scrambled eggs and frozen peas - not all together

).

Dovefromabove · January 2023

We had a combi microwave way back when they were new out ... I found it very useful, while I was there, but after a few years I was no longer there and @WonkyWomble's Papa took custardy of it

so I've no idea what happened to it.

You might be interested in this thread on the Cooking Forum I'm a member of ...
http://sakkarin.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=64 ... several folk on the forum have experience of Air Fryers etc and have posted about them.

B3 · January 2023

Our gas cooker has been disconnected since before Christmas due to a leak and nobody wants to mend it. I'm at a total loss what kind of freestanding cooker to buy. I would like another gas cooker but the hobs look really flimsy and dangerous - not enough spikes to support a pan safely. The electric cooker options are totally confusing if you're used to gas
Anyway, I have made an acquaintance with the fan convection oven that I've discovered in my Panasonic microwave. It seems to work ok but I wouldn't ever use the grill because it would be impossible to clean.
I've got a single basket type airfryer. Great for cooking beige stuff I don't usually eat🙄 impossible to get a decent UK air fryer cookery book so I haven't tried anything remotely adventurous. But Sainsbury's mag has started giving air fryer and slow cooker directions in their recipes so I might get more use out of it.

Fairygirl · January 2023

For anyone who still thinks grey squirrels are 'cute'....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-64290869

I wouldn't fancy a combi, but we got an air fryer a couple of months ago and we're using it quite a bit. Takes a little bit of experimenting with, but it's pretty good.
You could always just get a leccy hob - induction or similar, and an air fryer @B3.
There are quite a lot of air fryer recipes online, but, although the timings are often similar, the main advantage is the running cost. We did a chicken and roast tatties/carrots in it at C'mas. Worked well

I've heard of people who have just decided to use a camping gas stove top doofer [correct techy term] and a microwave.

Ergates · January 2023

B3, I went from a free standing gas cooker to a built in electric oven, and a separate induction hob about a year ago.Not much difference in the oven technique from gas to electric, switch it on, allow to heat and bung the food in! The induction hob has been a revelation. My sister has had one for years and highly recommended it, but I didn’t get mine till last year. It’s fantastic! So easy to keep clean, whereas the gas hob was a nightmare. Also very responsive to switching off / turning the heat down, to stop things burning or boiling over. It took a very short while to get used to it, and of course, you will need induction friendly cookware. Having said that, I bought inexpensive new frying pans in Ikea, and they still look like new. On the gas hob, they would have been covered in almost permanently baked on food by now, and I’d have been considering replacing them. Life is too short to fight a losing battle with hard to clean pans!
You can buy a single portable induction hob to try, but I’d check round friends and neighbours, and see if someone can demonstrate theirs.

🐧🐧CURMUDGEONS' CORNER XXI🐧🐧

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