My late husband Tony only stepped foot in a Catholic church as an adult the day he married his first wife, and when his son graduated from a Catholic school in 8th grade.

Yet every lenten season, he would not eat meat on Ash Wednesday or on Friday’s.  One of his favorite things to get?  A pepper and egg sandwich from Portillos.  Holy balls those were good! 

However, when I went to pick them up to bring them home, he wanted his “wet.”  If you are from Chicago, then you know that when you get an Italian beef sandwich, you can get it dry – meaning you will only get the Italian beef on the sandwich, or you could get it wet.  That is where they dip the whole sandwich in beef au jus.  

I would tell him that it was cheating by putting a pepper and egg sandwich in beef au jus, but his argument was that he didn’t actually eat meat.

The memory of that was the inspiration for these taquitos.  My 12 year old neighbor Charlie is a budding chef.  Hannah went next door to drop something off and while Hannah was talking to his Mom, he chopped up a green pepper, seasoned it, cooked it and handed it to Hannah and said “can you give this to your Mom from me?”  So sweet!

I used Alouette cheddar cheese spread on these taquitos – I love the spread because you get that cheesy taste in every bite.

I have to tell you that I am shocked at how often I use my air fryer.  Since I received it free to review, I thought after the initial “wow” factor, it would just go in the basement with the rest of my big appliances.

But I use it.  Like at least five times a week.  And you all know how I love to cook!   The one I have is the Simple Living Products Digital XXL 5.8 quart air fryer, which is the biggest one they sell.  And I’ll recommend that because it has the most “floor” space to cook.  You can also meal prep a whole chicken in there.  Baked potatoes come out crispy, yet fluffy on the inside.

Basically the Air Fryer is like a mini oven, but it cooks food in half the time.

I get a lot of question about how I get my corn tortillas from not splitting either air frying or doing my Pam crispy tacos in a skillet.  You have to microwave the corn tortillas until they are completely pliable.  I also brush both sides with grape seed oil for the air fryer, and Pam for the skillet tacos.

I made six taquitos.  I used 4 eggs that I scrambled with a tablespoon of fat free half and half – super fluffy!  I used a teaspoon of the sharp cheddar spread on each of the tacos, divided the scrambled eggs on top, added baby spinach and sauteed red and green peppers.  I also splashed with a bit of Tapatio hot sauce.  

The quickly roll up, and place seam side down in the air fryer for 6 minutes at 360, then flip, and cook for 4 more minutes.

I drizzled mine with Greek yogurt, more hot sauce, cilantro and some of my tomatillo salsa on the side.  Oh, and it helps if you read the words of the food you are using – I accidentally grabbed Hannah’s vanilla yogurt by mistake 😛

So crispy!  And you get the cheesy taste in every bite.  These taquitos are 7 points total – 4 for the tortillas, 1 for the brush of oil and 2 for the Alouette cheese.

Simple Living Products has given me  discount code!  Click on this link and you’ll get 10% off your order.  Discount code is BIZZY.

Some questions I got about it:

  1. Does it take up a lot of counter space?  Yes, but I store all of my big appliances on a shelf in my basement.  It’s super light so it’s easy to carry up and down the stairs.
  2. Do you use it often?  Yes!  I am so surprised.  But think of it like a mini oven on your counter.  I do preheat it at 360 for about 5-10 minutes before I use it, much like I would a regular oven.  If I am doing something in the air fryer, that’s the first thing I do is turn it on to preheat, put my stuff together and go from there.

Have any other questions about the air fryer?  Let me know!  I still need to try doing a whole roasted chicken in there and I read that you can make hard boiled eggs too.

Happy Wednesday friends – make it a great day!!  And don’t eat like an asshole.  Love, Biz