Missing out on the Ninja Foodi oven brings tears to my eyes

There is nothing my counter needed more than the Ninja Foodi oven.

For all intent and purpose, Black Friday is over but there isn’t much good news in sight if you are looking for one of the new Ninja Foodi ovens.

Having a spouse in retail should afford you certain benefits, especially when that spouse works in a department store that carries top of the line must-have electronic kitchen gadgets. My wife is one of those such spouses and unless she is working really hard to surprise me Christmas morning, there will be no Ninja Foodi oven under my tree.

Just about everywhere, that I could find anyway, the countertop convection oven is sold out. Sure, they will eventually get more in but not before the discounted prices rise back up again. By then, the luxury of having one may not be worth spending the extra money, especially when you know how much cheaper it was this weekend.

There are a couple of notable convection ovens by the Ninja company. One is an XL 10-in-1 Pro Air Fry and the other is a much smaller digital air fry oven. For the most part, they all do about the same thing although the XL will also dehydrate.

I am a Foodi lover through and through and since I do 98% of the cooking in my household, I love to find ways that allow me to get more creative and can spread out my range of cooking methods. I own both the extra-large Foodi Grill and one of the Foodi pressure cookers. I honestly can’t imagine living without them.

The thing is, I wanted to do more and I want to avoid the use of my oven which makes my house rather hot when I’m baking or roasting for long periods of time. The XL Foodi oven can replace the need for my built-in oven for just about everything, maybe not a large Thanksgiving turkey but the company says the XL oven will hold a 12-pound turkey. Not too shabby.

The oven will dehydrate, roast, broil, bake, and even air-fry all at the touch of a button. It has a setting to reheat food, and you can use it to reheat pizza, cook pizza, make toast, and toast bagels. Again, all at the push of a button.

If you are looking for something a tad smaller, the smaller version has the capability of folding up against the backsplash of your kitchen counter to save space. How cool is that? Pretty darn cool I tell ya!

I am willing to take up more space on my counter for the larger version because I really want to get away from using my main oven. I just don’t like it and the food is always cooked uneven. With the XL oven, there is no need to rotate your food so the cookies that your wife, or husband, bakes for that 2% of the cooking, won’t have burnt ones upfront or undercooked cookies in the back.

Somehow, I just wasn’t paying attention to this Black Friday sale. The smaller version is retailing for $169.00 but retails normally for $219.99 while the XL oven is retailing for $239.99 normally listed at $279.99. A big enough difference to hang your head in silent shame but not big enough to not buy one later.