[Fineus]

A bit of a food related question for you guys, if you'll indulge me.

Being the lazy git that I am - I don't like doing much work when it comes to preparing food, but I'm trying to be a bit more healthy and move from oven chips and such to fresher stuff like stir frys.

The question being... can you cook frozen food in a George Formans cooker, or does it have to be defrosted first?

Also, does the "defrost" mode of a microwave work especially well... and how long would say... a chicken breast... need to be in there for for that to work?

Cheers

[karajorma]

If the food can be cooked from frozen then certainly. Otherwise I wouldn't risk it.

Defrosting in the nuker works fine. Mine has a tendancy to cook the thinest bits at the edges though.

I tend to put it in and test it every few minutes to see if I can hear or feel the resistance of ice crystals on the inside

[aldo_14]

Yes.

My mum cooks hunners of stuff - burgers, meat pattys, burger like meat pattys - from frozen in the goold old George Formby.

[Deepblue]

Yeah you can.

I cook frozen hamburger patties just fine on one.

And for a great stir fry, use some thin steak, brocolli, onion, and some bell pepper in conjunction with a splash of soy sauce. Serve over rice.

[kasperl]

What is a George Foreman? A wok?

And for nuking stuff to defrost it: You might want to be very carefull once you get to cooking more tender meat. You can easily ruin a perfectly good steak or pork chop by half-baking it in the microwave, and making it tough as leather as a result.

Vegetables don't need to be cooked through and through, but anything but beaf or mutton is a good idea to have well done.

Aside from stir frys, salads can easily replace sudden snacks. Just make sure there's  some lettuce in the fridge, and have a jar of pickled eggs and/or mixed pickle standing around. The stuff will keep for ages, and it can easily replace a bowl of chips (or crisps) or something like that.

If you want, you can also pickle the eggs yourself, pickling veg takes longer, though.

[pyro-manic]

A George Foreman is a kind of electric grill thingy. Endorsed by the boxer, hence the name.

I personally quite enjoy cooking, so it's not a problem for me (well, not yet. 'S only been 6 weeks so far ). But yeah, good food is a must. You might consider buying one of those student cookbooks - it tends to be all quick-to-prepare stuff, and some of it should be pretty good.

Another stir-fry tip: Before you start cooking, get your wok (or frying pan if you don't have one) incredibly hot. Put it on the cooker for a couple of minutes at maximum heat, then throw in your vegetables and stuff. Cook it for a couple of minutes at most, and keep it moving constantly. Then throw your already-cooked and drained noodles in, for about another minute, then eat it straight away. Good stuff.

[vyper]

That's teh foreman.

[kasperl]

Ah.

Well, you can grill on that, I guess, but doing stir frying on it seems like a very, very interesting challenge. A wok or a frying pan is a good idea, then.

And pyro-manic is right, if you warm your pan up while the food is already in there, everything will get tougher and loose flavour.This goes for grilling meat as well, make sure the grill is hot before you added the meat. If you use a frying pan/skillet, add the butter/oil first, and don't add the meat till the bubbles are gone(ish) and the butter starts to brown. (Oil doesn't  brown, just watch the bubbles a bit, I guess.)

Note on all of the above: I know bugger all about English cooking terms, so not every utensil will be properly named.

[redsniper]

What's a George Foreman?
It's a lean, mean, fat-reducing, grillin' machine. Or so the commercials say.

[Flipside]

They're great for toasted cheese and bacon sandwiches

[vyper]

Dat true.

[Deepblue]

Originally posted by Flipside
They're great for toasted cheese and bacon sandwiches

[achtung]

Iv'e made frozen steaks in mine before, they turned out fine.  

The grills are good for making those small porkchops too.  But burgers come out a little dry for my taste.

[kasperl]

You can cook frozen meats, but the problem is getting the inside cooked correctly without charring the outside. Depends on the kind of grilling you do, but generally, for meats, the best is to defrost by simply letting it lie outside of the fridge for an afternoon.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]Just a wee tip, buy a steamer. You can cook fish, veggies, rice, spuds and a whole array of other foods, it's healthy and as long as the water heater/pan doesn't boil dry it's foolproof.
[/color]

[Nuke]

if i had a gas range, id never touch my george forman. but i dont so i do. i use mine primarily for steak and pork chops, sometimes hamburgers, breakfast sausage and the ocasional grilled cheese sandwich. i have a wok that comes in handy when i make stirfry or fajitas, though its not much use without a gas range. which pisses me off, i spend more time trying to keep the thing from rusting than actually using it.  my specialties are mexican and italian food, which dont require the gorge forman at all. i tried cooking asian food, but without a gas burner i wouldnt try it again. i never use a nuker th thaw stuf out, i dont like the way the radiation tweaks the fatty acids in meat. it makes it taste funny. yea steamers are indeed good, i just stick a strainer in one of my sauce pans for a make-shift steamer. i like cooking those little red potatoes and carrots. good for side dishes when i make meat loaf. my meat loaf is the :thepimp:

[Descenterace]

The 'defrost' power level of a microwave is about 50% higher than it should be. Use the lowest power level and check it every three minutes.

One trick my housemates use when defrosting chicken for chopping (eg. for curry) is to defrost it sufficiently for chopping, then put the crunchier pieces in the nuker for more defrosting. Chicken lumps defrost slightly faster than entire chicken breasts.

[Nuke]

i find its easyer to slice chicken while frozen, after which it will thaw out pretty quickly. i find this does not work with beaf at all. the george forman i find is fully capable of cooking thin slabs of half thawed meat. my favorite meathod for thawing meat is to fill the sink with hot water, and tossing the packake of meat into it. styrofome packages float nicly bottom up and you dont want a heat insulator between the water and the meat. i find the only downside is keeping the cats from plucking it out. my cat has been known to pull a package of meat, even something as big as 3 lbs, out of the sink, throw it on the floor, and drag it off to one of his various hiding places, where he begins to gorge himself.