If you're health conscious, chances are you own a George Foreman slant grill in your kitchen arsenal. This type of small, portable grill makes quick meals for the hungry mouths in your house, but there will come a time when you will fall out of love with it.
The convenience of the grill is wonderful, but it comes with a price: the Teflon coating on its metal plates eventually wears off. The first time this happened to me, I had the smallest grill and I knew I was a little rough on it. The Teflon started to flake off and was seared into my food, so I consigned it to the trash heap and marched off to the store to get a replacement.
The second one I bought was double the size and I treated its surface like it was a newborn baby's behind. Unfortunately, the Teflon is also flaking on this model as well as showing food burn marks on the plates. My food started to stick, and I was seriously considering consigning this one to the landfill, too, when a commercial came on TV and gave me a great quick cooking tip I'm going to pass onto you.
If your grill is in rough shape and you don't want to replace it (money's tight for everyone these days!) or you want to protect your grill's surface as long as you possibly can, here's an easy way to cook your food with minimal (if any) cleanup. You can do this one of two ways, so I'll give you both options to suit your time and cash budgets.
If money's not a problem, you might want to consider purchasing parchment baggies that you place your food inside , lay them on your grill's surface plates, and when the food's done, you remove the baggie with the food inside – and the mess, too!
If money's a problem or you don't like the above option, you can always buy a box of Reynolds Parchment Paper for less than $3.00 and make your own open pouches. When you pull out the parchment, make sure it's enough to fold over the food; tear off the large sheet. Now fold the large sheet into quarters; open, cut in half, and you have two folded sheets. Place the fold to the left side of the grill and overlap the bottom of the sheet so the fats drain away from the food. Add your food and any desired spices; close the paper flap on top and drop the grill's cover down on top of the food.
You might be asking the question: “will the paper catch on fire and burn my house down?” If you leave it on there long enough to turn your moist food into shoe leather, probably. Most of the Foreman grillers have a built in timer, so set it like you normally would. If you don't have a timer, set the one on your microwave or one on your cell phone. Parchment paper is made specifically for baking, but can be used in other ways.
The good thing about using parchment paper is the cleanup is nothing more than removing the paper and throwing it into the trash. There's no more scrubbing the surface off the grill! You might get the occasional fat and juice spill out of the right hand side, but that cleans up in a snap with a wet paper towel or napkin in just a few seconds.
Another plus is you know your food will not sear onto the plates, which is critical when you're grilling fish. Say good bye to adding extra fat calories with non-stick sprays!
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