Lifestyles
Food and Wine Festival with George Foreman
Upcoming Event Reminder: Come See George Foreman at the South Beach Food & Wine Festival!
We just wanted to give everyone a quick reminder to come see us at the Food Network South Beach Food & Wine Festival, in their Grand Tasting Tent from February 26th to the 28th.
We’ll have a tasting table that will offer a more spohisticated look at the food you can do on your George Foreman grill, beyond the standard burgers and chicken breasts. You’ll be able to meet some of the members of our team, see product demonstrations and learn how to do more with your George Foreman Grill.
This is a great event for all the foodies, grilling fanatics and George Foreman fans to come out and see what we’re all about.
You can find more details for the festival itself at www.sobefest.com, so come enjoy some sun, sand and sensational grilled food with the George Foreman team!
Food and Wine Festival with George Foreman
Come See George Foreman Grills at the South Beach Food & Wine Festival!
Attention all foodies and grill fanatics!
George Foreman Grills will be at the Food Network South Beach Food & Wine Festival, February 26th – 28th, 2010. We’ll be hosting an exhibit in the Grand Tasting Tent of the festival, directly on the beach.
We’ll be showcasing several of our grills, including the blog favorite Kitchen Bistro™ Grill. You can stop by to see demonstrations of our products in action, speak with one of our George Foreman experts or to get some cool George Foreman merchandise you can’t get anywhere else.
We’ll be providing more details each week leading up to the festival, so stay tuned for more details! You can also find more information on the festival itself at www.sobefest.com.
Super Bowl Snack Attack
Make your party food a hit with George Foreman
Super Bowl XLIV is set for February 7th of this year. To make your Super Bowl party planning easy – and a little healthier – we’re giving you a few ideas on how to use your George Foreman grill to handle all the party snacks you need to satisfy your Super Bowl crowd.
Tailgate Party Fare
From cheeseburgers to hot dogs, your George Foreman grill can bring all your favorite tailgate foods inside for your Super Bowl party. Depending on where you live, it’s probably still too cold to BBQ outside, so your electric grill is the perfect way to keep your favorite football foods supplied. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and brats can all be done in less than ten minutes, so it’s easy to make enough for all your guests.
Tex-Mex Treats
If you have a 360 Grill™ with quesadilla plates or our Quesadilla Maker, you can do stuffed-pocket quesadillas for another party platter. Since you make 6 quesadilla slices at a time, you can do several rounds of cooking to get a full spread with several stuffing options, like beef, chicken and vegetarian or plain cheese.
Another great Tex-Mex party food is fajitas. For quick and easy fajita meat, just marinate your chicken or beef in some lime juice with cilantro, cumin, pepper and chili powder to taste (you can do this the night before to make game-day cooking easier). Cook the meat, then cut across the grain in finger-length strips. To make this a party platter item, simply use mini tortillas, add the meat and let you guests go to town with toppings.
Mini Sandwiches
Finger foods make the best Super Bowl snacks because your guests don’t have to look away from the action to get a bite to eat – just reach and grab. Store-bought mini sandwich platters aren’t the most exciting thing in the world, but if you make the sandwiches from scratch at home, you can take standard party fare and make it masterful. You also get the added benefit of doing hot sandwiches, instead of cold, to make the platter a little heartier for all your hungry guests.
You can do this with any of your favorite sandwiches, but we highly recommend adding the Grown-Up Grilled Cheese recipe from this month’s recipe feature to your list.
Party Day Tip:
Making full-size burgers for a large number of guests may be too much. If you have a lot of guests coming, divide your burger meat into 3.5-ounce servings to make mini-burgers or sliders.
Party Day Tip #2:
Always check with your guests to see if you have a vegetarian or vegan in your group. If so, make sure to have some non-meat options on your party menu. Hot veggie sandwiches are a great way to ensure your vegetarian guests don’t get stuck with just veggie dip.
Game-Day Desserts
If you have a variable temperature grill with a deep-dish bake plate (needs to have high sides), you can do desserts directly on your grill, too. From sweet corn griddle cakes to brownies, you just have to adjust the cooking time for the different type of appliance. Simply set the cooking temperature to the same one listed on the package directions and check the dessert for doneness periodically before the listed cooking time to avoid overcooking.
Tips for Resolution Dieting
Tips to Meet Your Dieting Resolution
It’s the start of the first week of the year and it’s time to start putting those New Year’s resolutions into action! If you made a dieting resolution this year, chances are that it’s been tough to stick to it as you finish up the holiday leftovers and enjoy a few days of vacation. Today is a great time to start, though, as you get geared up to get back into work and your daily routine. To help you get a good jump into finally resolving your dieting resolution, here are our Top 3 Dieting Resolution Tips:
1. Make a Weekly Menu PlanSince people often get into ruts and routines, start by mapping out what you usually eat in an average week. See where your problems days are – maybe you have a dozen different activities every Wednesday, so you always end up eating fast food. You can start making adjustments to what you’d normally eat in order to make a healthy diet plan moving forward. For those busy Wednesdays, for example, you do something easy; then, eat healthier when you have time to cook something different on another day.
Another great thing about having a plan is that you can shop for everything all at once and avoid the common trouble of finding yourself with nothing healthy to eat in the house. People often break their diets when they don’t have any convenient healthy options on hand, so making a menu and doing all your shopping can make dieting easier.
2. Take Small Changes, Turn Them into a LifestyleOne of the worst things you can do when it comes to dieting is try to get it all done at once. If you change your entire diet at once and remove everything you love, you’ll be bored to tears and done with dieting in just a few days. A better option is to start making small changes gradually and then allow them to add up to your overall lifestyle change. Instead of removing all red meat if you eat a mainly red meat diet currently, simply exchange one of those red meat dinners for salmon or tuna.
The great thing about dieting this way is that if there’s a part of your diet that’s driving you nuts – like you get tired of eating salmon every week to get your recommended Omega 3 – you can adjust that part of your diet without giving up on the whole thing (i.e. you don’t eat salmon for that week, but you substitute walnut-encrusted chicken instead).
3. Healthy Grilling, Anyone?As cooking techniques go, grilling is one of the healthier cooking options you have – frying is obviously one of the most fattening cooking methods, but people don’t usually consider the unhealthy aspects of others. Baking, for instance, often asks you to add fattening additives, such as butter to sauté, cooking spray on a casserole dish or creams for sauces. While each of these by itself might not be bad, add them up and you have a less healthy meal as a whole.
On the flipside, indoor grilling doesn’t really require you to add anything at all. An electric grill with a good nonstick coating doesn’t require you to add oil, butter or cooking spraying to prevent food from sticking to the plates as it cooks. As a result, you don’t have to add any extra calories with additives to make your food cook better.
In addition, flavorings and seasonings that you add to grilled food to enhance flavor – like rubs and marinades – don’t typically include a lot of fat-laden items like creams, butter and milk. Instead, they use things like spices, herbs and citrus juices to add flavor – none of which add a lot of fat and extra calories. In this light, it’s easy to see how a good grilled chicken dish would be healthier than an equivalent baked alternative.
For more information on daily recommended food servings and portion sizes, please visit fda.gov for a free PDF file of their Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Resolutions with George Foreman
New Year’s Resolutions with George Foreman
Just a few more days and we’ll officially be moving on to the New Year. As we get close, this is the time everyone really starts making those New Year’s resolutions. We did a feature article in our December newsletter that broke down the ways George Foreman can help you lose weight and eat better in the New Year. Now, we pulled some of the top New Year’s resolutions from usa.gov and expanded on how George Foreman can help with each.
Lose Weight / Get Fit
Whether you’re trying to trim fat, have a healthier diet, lower your cholesterol or get in shape, it all comes down to eating better than you are right now. Even if you’re trying to shape up, adjusting your diet and your daily menu plan is a great way to help reach your goals. For more tips on using your George Foreman grill to get healthy in ‘010, read the full healthy eating resolution article from this month’s newsletter.
Manage Debt / Save Money
Eating at home is a great way to save money! You spend less cash cooking a full meal for your family at home than you would buying a comparable meal out at a restaurant. By committing to eat in, instead of eat out, you can actually save quite a bit of money each month. This is especially true if you make weekly menu plans, because you can coordinate ingredients so you don’t buy something and then only use half of it on one dish.
Reduce Stress
Cooking is actually a great stress reliever (it only causes stress if you eat everything you cook yourself and gain weight). The whole idea of cooking therapy came up recently with the idea of the Julie & Julia movie, where the Julie used cooking as a way to escape. In a NYDailyNews.com the author of Addicted to Stress, Debbie Mandel states, “while stress can numb your senses, cooking activates them. It’s a sensory experience with aroma, taste, touch, visual delight and even sizzling sound.”
Another great reliever of stress can simply be the act of sitting down to a family meal. Even if your hubby or some other member of your family is trying to reduce their stress, you can help by increasing the amount of sit-down family meals you do, which increases the amount of family bonding and relaxing around the table, reducing stress.
Quit Smoking
George Foreman grills don’t smoke as you cook, so you don’t get all that grease smoke filling your kitchen that you would from pan cooking! In all seriousness, though, finding another hobby and something to keep yourself busy can also help you quit smoking. Often, people use excuses to rationalize their smoking, such as needing something to do with their hands/mouths in place of puffing on a cigarette. Cooking keeps your hands busy (and eating does wonders for the mouth). By keeping yourself busy, you’ll have less time to think about what you’re missing.
Last Minute Gifts
Why George Foreman grills make great emergency presents
It always happens – no matter how much you plan or how many gifts you buy, there always seems to be that one person that you weren’t expecting who gives you a gift over the holidays. There’s a lot of fumbling and you end up giving them whatever you can find to try and hide the fact that you really didn’t have anything for them in the first place.
What’s worse, since we’ve all received those emergency last-minute gifts, they’re usually pretty easy to spot, so even if you come up with something on-hand, it still ends up being pretty embarrassing for everybody involved. As a result, many try to keep emergency gifts on hand, just in case these situations pop up, but what makes a good emergency gift?
Our favorite choice, of course, is the small appliance emergency gift – particularly an electric grill. Why does it work so well? Mainly, because it’s something everyone can use and enjoy. Everybody eats, so why not give a gift that lets someone eat a little healthier without a lot of extra hassle? Also, a nice electric grill doesn’t come off like an afterthought gift, so you can avoid any awkwardness, too.
Now that you’ve got the idea, it’s time to choose the grill you’ll use for your emergency gifts. The biggest consideration here is probably going to be the price – the more emergency gifts you need to buy for those unexpected gift exchanges, the less you call really spend on each. If you need a lot of emergency gifts, you might want to consider doing something like the Champ™ Grill we have on sale on the website for $19.99 – that’s only $20 for an emergency present and it’s a lot more interesting than the standard gift card! There’s also a Champ™ Grill with 3 grill sponges that’s on sale for $29.99, so you can give the gift of good food and easy cleaning, all-in-one.
If you aren’t buying as many emergency gifts and you can go a little higher in price, then some of our medium grills might work well. Many are priced under $50 and include additional features like variable temperature control, removable plates and on/off security switches. If you’re exchanging with someone that you know already has a basic George Foreman grill, then you may want to consider giving them something that has a few more bells and whistles. So, if most of your friends and family already have a basic George Foreman grill, then a grill with a few more features may serve you better as your emergency gifts.
Whichever grill you choose, plan out how many tentative gifts you think you may or may not need, then if you can, buy a few more over that number to ensure you have all the presents you need. This way, you can be prepared this year to give the gift of great grilled food instead of worrying about those last-minute gift exchanges.
Gift-Giving with George Foreman®
The best gifts for all the important people on your list
The holiday season is here and it’s time to buy gifts for all your family, friends, co-workers and loved ones. This gift-giving guide is intended to help you pick out what kind of grill would be best for everyone on your list. All the products listed are available for purchase in the products section of our website, so you can find the grill that’s right and purchase it directly using the link above.
Picking a grill for someone else is all about recognizing what that person needs in their home. You don’t want to get a complex grill for someone that doesn’t like to cook or an extra-large grill for someone with limited kitchen space. A number of factors play into making sure the grill fits the person you’re gifting, but the following recommendations should help you get started.
The Master Griller & the Home Chef
If you’re buying for someone that likes to cook and/or lives in front of their grill, you definitely want to go for something that offers options, versatility and control. The 360 Grill™ has all of these. As our largest removable plate grill ever (106 Sq. In.), the master griller in your house will love it for the space to play with different cuts and types of food on the grill. The home chef will also enjoy it for the additional plates to bake, griddle, plus make pizza and quesadillas. Variable temperature provides better control, so they can get cook temperatures just right, with an adjustable angle bar for flat cooking and sloped grilling.
The Busy Mom
For a busy mom, it’s all about getting more with less hassle. The Power Grill™ Grill & Griddle is the perfect option. The 100 Sq. In. cooking surface means mom can cook for up to 5 people at once, with a bonus griddle plate that lets her make more food with just one appliance – from eggs and bacon for breakfast on the griddle to healthier burgers and chicken breasts for dinner on the grill. The dishwasher-safe removable plates are another great feature for moms, as they minimize the time spent cleaning in the kitchen.
The busy mom that still loves to cook might also want to look into the 360 Grill™. The quesadilla plates make perfect snacks for kids, after school or any time. The cooking surface is still big enough for up to 5 servings, plus mom gets a little extra control to let her inner chef sing with variable temperature control.
The College Student
With all the junk and fattening food that’s a staple of the college lifestyle, giving a college student or grad a present that makes meals healthier is almost an act of charity. The two main considerations for the college student are space and ease of use. Our Champ™ Grill series are our smallest grills, so they fit well in compact spaces like a college dorm room or small apartment. There isn’t any programming, so the college student can get a hot meal without a hassle. Plus, our patented slope and George Tough™ nonstick coating mean fat and grease drain away from food, so your student can eat a little healthier without any extra work.
For a messy college kid, you may want to consider something that makes cleaning a little easier, too. The Champ™ Grill with 3 custom grill sponges, which is currently on sale on our website.
Condo & Apartment Couples
For couples in an apartment or condo, the main concern is most likely the limited space in the kitchen. Secondary is good style, then easy cleaning – since young couples are more likely to both be working. The G-Broil™ Digital Grill provides all of that and more. The 72 Sq. In. cooking surface is big enough for up to 3 average servings (like chicken or burgers) or 2 bigger cuts (like salmon or strip steaks). Removable plates make cleaning easy, while digital controls provide easy programming and cooking. It’s got a sleek, modern look to compliment kitchen décor, but the best feature for the condo/apartment owner is the locking side latches that allow for vertical storage.
Empty Nesters
With the kids out of the house, most empty nesters don’t really need an extra-large cooking surface. The New Snap Value™ Grill is a great solution. The 72 Sq. In. cooking surface is good for up to 3 servings of most grilled foods, with removable plates that make cleanup a breeze. The snap handles on the removable plates are easy to latch and unlatch, for easy removal and assembly. The grill is easy to use, so empty nesters can cook the food they love without a hassle.
No matter who you’re buying for, George Foreman® has a grill to fit their needs. We invite you to use the links above to get started, but spend some time looking at all of the products, so you know you’re getting the best presents for the ones you love.
Vegetarian Thanksgiving Alternatives
Using Your Electric Grill to Cook for Vegans at Your Thanksgiving Table
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.
Harvest Cooking
George Foreman® cooking Healthy fall harvest
Cooking delicious vegetable dishes with George Foreman®
In the world of grilling, many people think the only place for vegetables is topping their burger. Popular opinion tries to tell us meat is the king of all things grilled. With some of our own favorite grilled dishes mainly veggie-based, we at George Foreman® would beg to differ. So, in the spirit of the fall harvest, we bring you a salute to all things vegetable for your grill.
When it comes to grilled vegetables, there’s a world of possibilities to make your mouth water. From the delicious taste of fresh vegetables straight off the grill, to delectable dishes where grilled veggies are a key ingredient, there’s a variety of ways you can use your grill to incorporate more of those daily servings you’re probably lacking.
Why vegetables? Well, besides providing a tasty break from your everyday meat, fish and poultry, fresh vegetables are some of the best sources of the vitamins, nutrients and minerals you need in your daily diet (read more in the Veggie Bible article in this issue). You get more of what your body needs in a natural way, which makes you feel better and gives you more energy to tackle an active, busy lifestyle.
Hot Off the Grill
From fresh asparagus to portabella mushrooms, some vegetables taste phenomenal straight off the grill. If you’re in the mood for a different taste and texture to your standard daily menu, try doing grilled eggplant for dinner one night on a bed of wild or jasmine rice – extremely healthy and intensely flavorful. For a great meal addition to any protein, you can also try thickly slicing up some tomatoes and grilling them up for a tasty side dish.
Marinade a Masterpiece
Vegetables work much like their protein counterparts in the grilling world – you can grill dry to bring out the pure flavor of the vegetable or use marinades to compliment it. Various kinds of vinegar, honey, soy, sesame and garlic are just some of the wide range of marinade components you can add to vegetables to enhance their flavor. When using marinades on vegetables, you only need to allow the marinade to work for about 1 – 3 hours on average.
Grilled Veggie Café
If you’re in the mood for something light, try grilling up your favorite vegetables and then adding them to a sandwich or salad. An assortment of grilled vegetables work great in a refreshing pasta salad or you can make a main course salad mixing fresh greens and hot grilled vegetables.
You can also use grilled veggies in sandwiches, either combined with sliced meat or all by themselves with a fresh slice of cheese. If you truly want to make the sandwich something special in your menu, you can even throw it back on the grill for a quick and easy vegetable Panini.
Bring Out the Bake Pan
From grilled vegetable bakes to ratatouille, casseroles and more, grilled vegetables provide baked dishes with a unique flavor and good texture. If you have a George Foreman® Grill model that includes a griddle or bake plate, such as the 360 Grill™ or Kitchen Bistro™ Grill, you can even skip your oven and make the baked dishes, themselves on the grill. Simply grill your vegetables first, let the plates cool down, then switch to the bake plate and finish the dish.
For a great meal using your George Foreman® Grill with a bake pan, look at this recipe from the George Foreman® Healthy Cooking Blog.
Raichlen, Steven. Barbeque bible. Page 57.
Great Grills for Great Soldiers
George Foreman® gets an opportunity to help our troops
Great Grills for Great Soldiers
At George Foreman®, we’ve always loved that our products help people eat and live better. Never, though, have we been so proud of being able to do that than this year when we got the chance to help some of our service members in Iraq. Making sure people eat better is what we do every day, but it’s truly never felt quite so uniquely rewarding as it did in this case.
For critical care nurse LTJG Kristen Andersen’s Shock Trauma Platoon, the turnover with the outgoing group included more than just the usual rundown on medical equipment, supplies, and sharing of lessons learned. In addition to the passing of information, it also marked the transfer of an important and vital piece of equipment: the precious George Foreman® Grill.
“Battle tested” over the previous seven months, the grill was used by the medical group’s sailors and marines to grill the daily cold cut lunch sandwiches served in the small base’s chow hall. The improvement in taste as a result of grilling the sandwiches was so notable, that Andersen shared it with her family back in the US. Finding it an interesting story, her father decided to share it with us.
Upon receiving this story, we knew exactly what we wanted to do – soon, a collection of G5 Grills was on their way to her base. Upon hearing the news, Andersen was very excited at the prospect of sharing the luxury enjoyed by her group with the rest of her small base.
As soon as the grills arrived, Andersen distributed them to the various hard working groups on base as well as the chowhall. As a result, everyone on their base – marines, sailors, soldiers and civilian contractors – is now enjoying the better tasting grilled sandwiches. We couldn’t be more proud.
A copy of this newsletter is being sent to their base, so we would like to wish all of you at the base a safe tour and a quick return. Thank you for everything you’ve done and letting us do what we can for you. It’s truly an honor.