For those of you who struggle with cooking and meal prep

[BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation]

I absolutely loathe cooking. It's messy, faffy, tedious and annoying. Nothing about meal prep interests me beyond sticking my hand in the fridge and grabbing something to eat straight away. It also takes too long.

Well, I nagged dh and we finally bought an air fryer and it's amazing and tremendous! 😃😃😃

It takes at least half the time to cook stuff, you can cook vegetables in it to help with veg intake, it's quick, easy and bench height, so no struggling with the oven. It's also a lot more economical. And, you can cook your stuff together in it, so fish, potato and vegetables in one area for example.

I made ds' tea in 15 minutes start to finish - cheese and onion veggie bake, mini potatos, peas (in pan) shallots and a red pepper.

We bought a Tefal one, but there are other makes. They're not big enough to do a whole meal for the entire family, but if you don't mind staggering things it's fine. There's lots of tutorials on YouTube and you can use trial and error to figure it out as it's easy - even I can manage 😄

I have one of those instant pot jobbies, throw in ingredients and it fries, cooks, only thing it doesn't do is prep, bloody wonderful. I used to enjoy cooking, but now I have to provide food day in and out for MIL it is simply a drudge.

If you have a kindle or similar there are also lots of free or cheap books with recipes and so on and I joined a facebook group for it too

Is that a slow cooker @LilyRed?

erm, it slow cooks, sautés, bakes, steams, pressure cooks, air-fries, and a couple of other things too I think - It was on sale on Amazon at Christmas (one version of this at least and various air fryers on Amazon sale again)

It has a pressure lid (not needed for sauté or slow cook, I got a glass lid to fit), and an air fry lid for the frying, baking, etc, so it does need space to store.

I had considered getting a slow cooker for ages, but we also eat a lot of curries where a pressure cooker would help, and the odd fried thing, so this was ideal. I got the 5.7litre (I think the US calls it six quart size) which would easily cook meals for a family of upto six - or four really hungry people. If I make stews or ragus I make extra to freeze.

I still don't use the pressure cooker for rice, as I have my trusty ancient rice cooker and my soup maker for soup though! I do like my gadgets!

It definitely saves on using the gas and the oven to cook. Chicken curry tomorrow!