George Foreman Valentines Day Breakfast

Valentine’s Day Breakfast with Your George Foreman Griddle / Griddle Plate

Fruit-Topped Pancakes & French Toast

Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, which makes it the perfect opportunity to serve up a little breakfast-in-bed to your valentine. You actually have the time to cook a full meal and make it with love this year, instead of trying to rush something in the morning before you head off to work. With either a George Foreman Griddle or a George Foreman Grill with an interchangeable griddle/bake plate, doing breakfast-in-bed is easy!

The nice thing about making breakfast on a griddle surface is that you can pretty much do everything at one time, with one appliance. This makes cooking less stressful (especially nice for sleepy mornings) plus minimizes cleanup so you can get on with enjoying your Valentine’s Day instead of washing dishes.

So what can you cook on using a George Foreman griddle or griddle plate? Just about anything you could imagine in the way of breakfast food:

A full spread for a special Valentine's Day breakfast

• Eggs
• Bacon, Sausage, Ham
• Hash Browns
• Pancakes
• Corncakes
• French Toast
• Omelets & Scrambles
• Breakfast Sandwiches
• Breakfast Tacos & Burritos
• Toad-in-a-Hole

All of our griddles, plus any grill that has a griddle plate, will have variable temperature, since griddles can handle such a wide variety of foods. Refer to the cooking chart in your Use & Care manual for specific temperatures, but most breakfast foods range between 325° and 350°F.

Once you have the food ready, just put everything nicely on the plate, add some juice and a fresh flower for decoration, and you have the perfect start your Valentine’s Day without a lot of work.

If you need a recipe to get you inspired, here’s a great one for English Muffin Breakfast Sandwiches…

English Muffin Breakfast Sandwiches

• 2 English muffins
• 4 slices Canadian bacon, 3” diameter
• ⅓ cup Egg Beaters^®
• 4 slices sharp cheddar cheese
• Butter, softened
• Salt and pepper 

1. Preheat griddle surface to 350°F.
2. Spread butter on cut side of English muffins. Place butter side down on griddle surface.
3. Place Canadian bacon slices on griddle surface.
4. Drop ½ tsp. of butter on the griddle surface and pour Egg Beaters^® on top of the butter. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Turn Canadian bacon over and top with cheese slices.
6. Turn eggs over after they have set.
7. When egg is done and cheese is soft, turn over English muffin, top with Canadian bacon, cheese side down, and then add the egg.

Tags: George Foreman Valentines Day Breakfast

New Years Party Snacks with George Foreman

Holiday Party Planning

New Year’s Snacks on your George Foreman grill

Having trouble coming up with some easy snacks for your New Year’s party? Your George Foreman grill can help! Here are some of the top appetizers and dishes you can make using the various plate sets of George Foreman:

GRILL PLATES

Besides the usual fare of hamburgers, hot dogs and grilled sausages with BBQ sauce, you can also do some additional creative dishes for your New Year’s party with your grill plates. Kabobs are a great choice, since they can serve as a party platter item or a more substantial main dish if you’re feeding your guests a full meal. Another great party platter item is some kind of slider dish – mini-hamburgers (typically about 3 – 4 oz. of meat) that can be done with a variety of tasty toppings.

As a New Year’s treat, here is a great slider recipe you can use for your party:

Beef & Blue Cheese Sliders on the 360 Grill

Beef & Blue Cheese Sliders

• ¼ cup crumbled blue cheese
• 2 tbsp. minced green onion
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. coarse black pepper
• ½ tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 12 oz. lean ground beef
• 6 curly green leaf lettuce, small leaves
• 6 slider buns or small dinner rolls, split

Using your George Foreman® Grill with the grill plates securely attached. Plug in and preheat grill; on most grills, the preheat indicator light will go out when you reach your cooking temperature.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, toss together cheese, green onion, salt, pepper and oil. Add ground beef and blend; do not over mix. 

Divide ground beef mixture into 6 equal portions. Lightly flatten each to form a ½-inch thick square burger patty. Place burgers on the grill. Close the lid and cook for about 3 minutes, or to desired doneness. 

Assemble each slider by placing one leaf of lettuce on the bottom half of each roll. Place cooked beef patty on lettuce. Top each patty with the remaining half of roll. 

Makes 3 appetizer servings of 2 sliders each.

BAKE/GRIDDLE PLATE

Ghirardelli brownies in the Kitchen Bistro

All kinds of great dishes can be done for a party using a George Foreman grill with a bake or griddle plate – especially if your grill has variable temperature, because you can use it as a baking chamber in place of your oven. You can do crab cakes, quiche, foccacia and even brownies directly on your electric grill – that’s right, brownies on your grill!

To give you an idea of the time adjustment, we baked Ghirardelli® and Duncan Hines® Chocolate Lovers brownies for 25 minutes at 350°F. Each recipe will be different, so we recommend trying it out once before your party to make sure you have the cook time right.

QUESADILLA PLATES

Delicious Quesadillas on the 360 Grill

Our 360 Grill™ has quesadilla plates, which are the perfect, quick and easy party menu maker. We also have a George Foreman quesadilla maker that works for this as well. You just take 2 tortillas and stuff them with your favorite ingredients, grill for just a few minutes and you’re ready to go.

If you don’t have your own favorite quesadilla stuffers, here is an easy recipe:

Quick & Easy Quesadillas

• 1½ cups pepper strips
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• ½ lb. grilled pork loin, cut in strips
• 2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
• ½ tsp. oregano
• ½ tsp. coarse salt
• ½ tsp. ground cumin
• ¼ tsp. coarse black pepper
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar Jack cheese blend
• 4 large tortillas (9 to 10 inches)

Place upper grill plate and bake pan on your 360 Grill™.  Preheat for about 6 minutes on Medium High. (Green light will notify you that the grill is ready.)

Add peppers, onion and garlic and cook until onion is softened, about 3 minutes. Add pork, cilantro and seasonings. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl; toss to blend.

Let your grill cool and then exchange the plates for the quesadilla plates; preheat on Medium High for 5 minutes.  (Green light will notify you that the grill is ready.)

Meanwhile, assemble quesadillas. Place 2 tortillas on work surface; divide pork mixture evenly between both. Top with cheese and remaining tortillas. Carefully place one tortilla on grill and cook for about 3 minutes until cheese is melted and tortillas are lightly browned. Remove to serving plate and repeat with the remaining quesadilla.

Makes 6 servings

If desired garnish with low fat sour cream, salsa and chopped cilantro.

Tags: Holiday Party Planning, New Years Party Snacks with George Foreman

Christmas Morning with George Foreman

Holiday Party Planning

Christmas Morning with George Foreman

For most people, the grill only applies to breakfast food when it comes to sausage and bacon; but in truth, a multifunctional grill can do a lot more for breakfast than you think. If you have a grill with multiple plates, then chances are you can pretty much do the whole meal on your grill to minimize cleanup and make breakfast cooking supremely easy.

This is especially good for Christmas morning, where you’d rather be spending time with the family, opening presents and even planning for dinner if you do a big meal on Christmas day. Using your grill, you can have breakfast ready in a snap and then move on to more important things after you throw a few things in the dishwasher.

Many of our electric grills come with a griddle/bake plate. For those familiar with using a griddle, you know this is a breakfast mainstay appliance. You can do eggs, French toast, omelets, breakfast sandwiches and, of course, the standard sausage and bacon.

Ham & Swiss Breakfast Strata

Another great idea is to do something like a breakfast strata. Bake plates with deeper sides (particularly the plates with 2-inch depth) are perfect for doing casseroles and strata as we mentioned in our last post. Simply prepare the strata as you normally would, then place it in your bake plate on the grill instead of in a baking vessel.

If you’re interested in trying a strata, but don’t have a recipe, we’ll be posting the Ham & Swiss Strata recipe directly following this post as a special gift to you!

The 360 Grill™ comes with a quesadilla plate, which makes for an easy breakfast meal if you have a taste for breakfast quesadillas. Simply fill the tortillas with eggs, cheese and your favorite meat or veggies and you’re ready to go. Since they cook in about 3 minutes, you can even make several different variations and have a whole spread at your family meal.

Chocolate Chip Muffins on the Kitchen Bistro

Yes, there is a George Foreman grill with a muffin pan! The Kitchen Bistro™ series comes with a muffin pan insert that fits directly into the bake plate of the grill. It makes 6 muffins at a time – either from scratch or using a prepackaged mix. You’ll need to adjust the baking time, but this list will provide you with a few examples of cooking times:

Jiffy^® Corn Muffins: 400ºF baked for 10 minutes; made 10

Martha White^® Blueberry Muffins: 425ºF baked for 12 minutes; made  6

Betty Crocker Banana Nut Muffins: 375º baked for 12 minutes; made 6

Whichever multi-plate grill you have, as long as you have a little creativity, you can do breakfast on your George Foreman in a snap. Once you’ve finished cooking, just throw the plates you used, along with the accessories, into the dishwasher and get on to enjoying the rest of your day!

Tags: Christmas Morning with George Foreman, Holiday Party Planning

Side Dishes on Bake Plate

Holiday Party Planning

Make side dishes with your grill’s bake plate

The holiday season can be tough when it comes to planning out how you’re going to cook everything for your holiday meals. At best, you have a double oven, but even that isn’t enough to cover all the courses you need for a holiday meal. The key to good holiday party planning is figuring out how to best use the resources you have in your kitchen to make holiday cooking easier.

The nice thing about having a grill with an interchangeable bake/griddle plate is that you can use it as an alternate baking dish. At least some of your side dishes can be baked in your electric grill using the bake plate, which will ease up the load you’re putting on your oven. This way, the oven can be saved for things like the big dish main course and everything can be cooked at the same time to be ready at the same time.

So what can you cook in your bake plate? Basically, you can do almost anything you do in your oven – casseroles, strata and even quiche can all be cooked in the bake plate. The cooking method is the same – i.e. your oven bakes by cooking from the top and bottom, but so does a contact grill. Since all of our electric grill models with a bake plate have variable temperature as well, you can adjust the temperature just like you would in your oven, so both appliances cook food the same way.

If you’re going to be doing a side dish in the bake plate on your grill, there are a few things you need to determine:

Is the size of the bake plate the same size as the baking dish called for in your recipe? If not, you will need to make sure that the dish will fit, then you will need to adjust the cooking time slightly and check it periodically

Are the sides of the bake plate high enough so the dish won’t spill over as it cooks? Often, baked dishes will rise at least slightly, so you need to be sure the bake plate won’t overflow as it cooks.

While the side dish is cooking, you will want to check it periodically to avoid overcooking. Often, your grill will actually bake faster than a regular oven because there’s less open space where the air is circulating, so it maintains a more constant temperature. As such, the dish may finish sooner than you expect and you want to avoid overcooking. Ideally, you should try the dish prior to cooking it for the big meal just to make sure, but as long as you monitor cooking progress, you should be safe.

Tags: Holiday Party Planning, Side Dishes on Bake Plate

Meat Thanksgiving Alternatives

Alternate Meats in the Thanksgiving Meal

George Foreman® Thanksgiving Main Course Alternatives

Over the past few posts, we’ve covered all the bases in providing an alternative entrée to the start turkey at your Thanksgiving table – for vegans, vegetarians, non-poultry eaters and the like. Still, there are those who eat meat and poultry, but simply don’t like the taste of turkey.

Sound like sacrilege? Not really. In fact, there is a healthy debate over whether turkey was actually served at the first Thanksgiving table at all. It would’ve been around in the area at the time, but venison would have been a more likely choice for their main dish.[1] In fact, turkey more likely became the traditional main course after 1863 when it was made an official national holiday – at a time when both turkey and cranberries were mainstays of a fine meal in American Victorian culture.[2]

So what do you do for your guests that don’t feeling like going along with tradition? For a more authentic feel, you could use a protein that would’ve been around at the time. For red meat eaters, venison is an outstanding choice – it’s not something they get everyday, it has a bit of history with the holiday and it’s actually leaner with about 1/3 less fat than a comparable cut of beef.[3] Cooked on your George Foreman grill, that’s a highly healthy red meat serving with a bit of holiday flair.

Another interesting red meat choice would be buffalo. While it wouldn’t have been in the New England coast area of the Plymouth landing, it was a plentiful part of American colonial culture. It’s a popular red meat that’s making a comeback and it fits the American Heart Association’s dietary standards[4], so it comes out lean, healthy and delicious from George Foreman grill with its patented slope.

Of course, you can also do beef, chicken, lamb or pork for your alternate main course. Pork chops are an icon in the traditional American diet, so they make a good choice. Whatever protein you choose, again, try to keep the marinade and/or seasoning centered around the holiday with fresh herbs like dill or thyme, cider vinegars and the like. If you’re cooking for only one or two guests that won’t eat turkey, the best idea is to focus the alternate main course around their tastes, so everyone at your table can walk away happy.

[1] http://hnn.us/articles/406.html

[2] http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/tgivinghistory.htm

[3] http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/venison.htm

[4] http://www.buffalohillsbisonmeat.com/nutritional_information.php

Tags: Meat Thanksgiving Alternatives

Fish Thanksgiving Alternatives

Some Traditional Fish Alternatives to Thanksgiving Turkey

Discover the bounty of Thanksgiving with George Foreman

Vegans and strict vegetarians aren’t the only ones that don’t necessarily want turkey on Thanksgiving. Whether it’s a non-meat/poultry vegetarian or just someone that doesn’t like the taste of the traditional bird, sometimes you may need an alternate protein at your Thanksgiving dinner.

A good solution is to serve a fish entrée as an alternate main course to the turkey. Simply do a nice whole fish or thick cut of steak to give your non-turkey guests something as hearty and filling as the main entrée. Like the vegetarian alternatives offered in Wednesday’s posting, when you cook the fish, try using spices and liquids in your marinade or rub that have a more traditional Americana feel to them, to keep with the spirit of the meal. Dill, lemon and apple cider vinegar are all good options to use as a flavor base.

As for the types of fish you want to use, it will feel more authentic and traditional if you can use a fish that’s distinctively American. Trout and catfish are good, classic choices for your fish, and salmon can work as well. However, the most traditionally accurate choice you could use would be an Atlantic Cod. This fish was around the area of the pilgrims and plentiful at the time,* so it’s something that will hearken back to that first Thanksgiving and give a real sense of a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Like the vegetarian suggestions we made on Wednesday, the other advantage to a fish dish main course alternative is that you can use your electric grill to cook the dish instead of infringing on already limited oven space. If you have a grill that has a griddle plate or deep-dish bake plate – like the 360 Grill™ or the Power Grill™ Grill & Griddle – you can even do a baked fish dish without using your oven.

Tags: Fish Thanksgiving Alternatives

Vegetarian Thanksgiving Alternatives

Parties and big meals are almost never an easy place for vegans to be, but that’s especially true for a holiday that’s centered on turkey. While you could leave the vegan at your table to munch on the relish tray or enjoy a nice medley of side dishes, the better alternative is to provide an alternative main dish to make the meal just as special for them.

Using your George Foreman® grill is the perfect way to provide an alternate main dish to your Thanksgiving bird. You can grill a few servings of tofu or your favorite main-dish veggie, so you won’t have to take up any of the oven space that’s such a hot commodity during holiday cooking.

If you’re using a vegetable as the key main ingredient, you want to choose one that’s hearty and filling – something that doesn’t feel like they’re eating just another side dish. Two great candidates are grilled eggplant and grilled acorn squash – the latter even provides the added benefit of feeling like a Thanksgiving meal in a “Horn of Plenty” kind of way.

In addition to saving oven space by using your electric grill, a grilled vegetarian main dish will also help cut down on the time you spend cooking the alternate dish. Instead of constructing a complex baked recipe, you can simply whip up a tasty marinade, leave the tofu or veggies to soak in the flavor, and then grill them up just before the meal.

If you’re going to do a marinade, make it more special and festive by using marinade ingredients with a holiday feel to them, such as maple syrup or apple cider vinegar. This way, the vegan at your table is still getting the tastes and flavors of the holiday, even without the turkey.

Tags: Vegetarian Thanksgiving Alternatives