Easy Air Fryer: And We have a Baked Potato

I finally have a great use for my air fryer — baking a potato. I happen to love baked potatoes — they make an easy meal for just one person when everyone else is out of town. However, baking a potato proprely is not as easy as it seems. A great baked potato should have a salty, flavorful yet chewable outer skin and a moist, steamy inside. But, why heat up the oven and entire kitchen to bake just one or two potatoes? After many tries, I finally have a recipe for one “perfect” baked potato in my air fryer. And, I’m loading my baked potato up with vegetables and cheese — for a healthy meal!

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Lament to Summer Tomatoes: A Savory, Silky Tomato Soup & Air Fryer Croutons

“Savory Tomato Soup” is a soup which I made this past summer using canned tomatoes just because I just couldn’t find juicy, fresh ones. I’m making it again this winter — what is better than hot soup on a cold winter night. My summer garden crop of tomatoes flopped; the price of tomatoes in grocery stores was extravagant. I apparently missed the market for those delicious Creole tomatoes which I love so much. To spite the situation, I decided to make tomato soup using canned tomatoes rather than fresh ones. But move over, fresh tomatoes. This soup turned out to be quite delicious and can be made any time of the year, even when tomatoes are not in season. Here’s what I did.

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Za’atar Roasted Sweet Potato Fries in the Air Fryer

My daughter-in-law gave me a package of a Za’atar-seasoning blend which was intended for use as an olive oil dipping sauce. She loves Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine and had an extra packet to share. How thoughtful, and now I have a new cooking adventure! Rather than making a dipping sauce for pita bread, I used the Za’atar spice blend to flavor sweet potato wedges. The za’atar gave a totally different flavor profile to the sweet potatoes and it was a nice change from Cajun-type spices — which are typically “hot” and require a strong palate to eat. The “Za’atar Roasted Sweet Potato Fries” were delicious. Best of all, I successfully roasted the small batch of sweet potato wedges in my air fryer — yeah, go air fryer. This three-ingredient sweet potato recipe is so simple!

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A Very Small Batch of Air Fryer Whole Okra

I am always looking for creative ways to use local ingredients. I figured that cooking okra in an air fryer a might be a good way to use some of the fresh okra harvest which comes in late summer here in Louisiana. My “Air Fryer Whole Okra” experiment was tasty, especially because I poured on the Cajun-type seasonings. However, as a disclaimer, air fryer okra is totally different from deep fried okra. That’s because air fryers “bake” the food with a convection fan running, they don’t “fry.” Why can’t I get that small distinction internalized in my head? I made multiple batches in my air fryer to get the process standardized, using both fresh and frozen whole okra. We devoured all the batches because the okra tasted pretty good. Just don’t expect air fried okra to have a a crunchy batter that “pops.”

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