HAVE YOU EVER COOKED A ROAST CHICKEN IN A FRYING PAN?
So last Sunday our oven died.
Not a big deal for some, but for us a tragedy. As avid meal preppers we hadn’t realised just how much we used our oven to prepare meals ahead of time, but with it out of action we quickly realised just how much our productivity had slipped by needing to be creative and savvy prior to the replacement of our oven.
Have you ever seen somebody cook a roast chicken in a frying pan?
Well, that was the experience for Andrew last Sunday eagerly awaiting a beautiful roast chicken to come out of the oven, when at the hour mark Alyssa opened the oven and said ‘the oven is cold, the chicken is raw…’. A few expletives were said.
Quickly out the oven and onto the chopping board. A sloppy mess that was then cut into bite sized pieces to be cooked (one meal at a time) into the frying pan…
It took us back to our previous renovation where we did not have a kitchen for 12 months due to demolition and build, and operated out kitchen from our rear shed. A powered induction cook top from Ikea which ended up in the construction skip due to its half hour time it took to get water to boiling and the complete lacklustre of our electric frying pan which was also woeful at cooking consequentially also ended up in the builders skip.
Anyhow, I digress…
From knowing how to be creative when cooking, and from preparing ahead – one thing came to mind with our budget sense was ‘how do we replace our current oven, for as little cost as possible.’ What would be our best ‘bang-for-buck?’
Turns out this led us down the road to investigate air fryers. So, we pop into the car on a Sunday afternoon to the nearest JB HIFI to check out a new widget that would solve our problems for the low price of $349.99.
Arriving at 3pm on a Sunday (worst decision ever, but a necessary evil), we quickly found the make and model of the proposed Ninja XL air fryer and grill. I quickly picked it up, put it on a high shelf and started giving it the once over – front, back, sides, and inside. It was cheap, small, and expensive for what it was.
Most attachments were plastic (cheap and easy to break), and the boast of cooking 6 steaks for a family… well… I doubt it would have fitted two steaks at a time. We quickly realised that the bulk of this item, the cost of the product, and the bench space it would take up in our small country shack would NOT be any advantage for us. That and the fact it was nearly 100% plastic and the way I cook I would probably set it on fire, and as an avid fans of flame cooking on the weber, we are not fans of flame cooking inside the kitchen!
Alyssa also felt that cleaning every nook and cranny would be near impossible knowing the way Andrew cooks…
We came to the conclusion that air fryers are dumb, and we don’t know why people would buy them.
Our journey continued to find the right oven for us so that we could get back to preparing our meals and increasing our daily productivity – no more roast chicken in the frying pan.
Turns out the best option was a Westinghouse electric cook to and oven with grill, for just over double the price of an air-fryer at $849. It was time to run the numbers…
Procuring the previous oven following a friends property reno for $100 (absolute bargain) following the move into our beach shack we released that this oven had lasted us just over 2.5 years, at a cost of about $40 per year. For our new oven at $849 to be competitive on cost-of-purchase, ‘return on investment’ at the same rate, we would need to have our oven in full operation for the next 21 years…
In review it turns out the initial investment for our ‘cheap’ oven from a few years ago was a savvy financial investment. Who knows if the new Westinghouse will still be running in 21 years time. What’s the life cycle of an oven again?
Since receiving our new oven, cooking has been bliss, and our productivity has happily improved. Meal prep is back to normal and all is well with the world.
It’s amazing what something so simple, that is in all of our homes, can do to you when it is out of action. The slight imbalance throws out your entire day and increases stress levels higher than they need to be.
When something goes wrong in your life it just goes to show that the quicker you get onto it and find what you really need, not what you think you need, that everything falls right back into place.
We are grateful and thankful to be back cooking in bliss and harmony and our life is so much better for it, and sometimes it’s the simple things that matter most…
Moral to the story is to eat well and be happy, and if there is a cheap ‘workaround’ that will ‘do-for-now,’ don’t be a tight arse seeking conventional methods, and bite the bullet to invest in what you need where it counts (if you can), and remember air fryers are dumb.
P.S – It was amazing watching Alyssa negotiate the price from the sales person. In store our oven was listed for $899 and I heard Alyssa ask ‘is that the best price?’ Sales person responded $830, then she said – without skipping a beat… ‘don’t suppose you could do $800?’
We ended up getting it for $800! It’s amazing to have such a master negotiator in my life.
