Average Rating: 
Rating:  - It's slowly replacing my oven!
I had wanted to get this grill for awhile, but was still a little leery of its merits. I finally bought it anyway, and so far, have been loving it! I anticipate that during the summer it will replace my oven.I cook a lot of chicken, either in the skillet, or in the oven. With this grill, you don't have to worry about turning the chicken, watching it, etc. All I really do it watch the clock. The first night I had the grill, I made salmon fillets, and they turned out great. While I love the grill so far, there are a few things to watch out for. The first time I cooked chicken, I overcooked it..you kind of need to play around with the times in the booklet enclosed with the grill. I also found that I needed to push the grease tray farther back (closer to the grill) than I initially thought. Also, it does get quite smoky, so it would probably be most ideal if your kitchen had some kind of window. With cleaning, you really do have to do it while the grill is still warm, or it makes it a lot harder to clean off. I've barely used my oven since getting this grill..in the summer it will be great not having to heat up the whole house.
Rating: - Received this as a wedding present - very useful!
I read the rave reviews on [Amazon.com] and registered for this (on [Amazon.com]) and received the Family size grill with small cookbook as a wedding present. It's taken me awhile to get the hang of this product but now I love it. Cleanup took a bit of figuring out for me. I now use only damp paper towels (no scrapers or sponge) to just wipe after use. If I don't end up cleaning it until the next day I just heat it up again with a few wet paper towels in it and then wipe clean. This makes it so easy because you don't have to clean up a sponge or scraper afterwards. I brush on a bit of olive oil onto the grill (very lightly) before grilling any foods. That seems to help make it taste better and also clean very easily. This family size fit 4 very big salmon filets easily. (Marinated with Yoshida Gourmet Sauce - yum!) I also grilled two very big chicken breasts last night for a chicken quesadilla recipe. It was so nice not to have to drag out a pan and spatula and stand watching over the chicken. All I did was sprinkle McCormick's Grill Mates Roasted Garlic Montreal Chicken spice over the chicken breasts and slap it in there. Very quick and simple and tasted great. I also grilled sliced sweet potatoes this morning. Turned out great. Again, no fussing with a pan and oil splattering. There was a bit of smoke though so make sure you have ventilation in your kitchen. One last thing I wanted to mention... I've only had this item for a month now so I'm not qualified to give feedback on the durability of the teflon yet. Right now it is going strong and I can't imagine it peeling ever but because of the other reviews mentioning the problem I use only chopsticks or some other wooden utensils when removing food. But I'm very good at holding heavy pieces with chopsticks so I don't know if that solution would work for everyone. Chopsticks do make really good cooking utensils though because they are small and easy to clean and don't scratch the nonstick surface.
The other thing I do is not to apply wet paper towels on the grill until it has cooled down a bit (from hot to warm) because I think cooling the grill too fast can be tough on the nonstick surface... maybe make it crack. BTW, my husband doesn't rave about this product, it's just a good product to him but he wouldn't run out to buy one if he didn't have it he says. But I would. Also, this family size is good for cooking meat for 2-4 people. However, I recommend getting as big a size as you can stand because vegetables take up more space per serving so if you like grilling onions or other vegies, the bigger the surface area the better. It's just the right size for my husband and me with a bit of room to spare in case we have a guest or two over. Thanks everyone for the helpful reviews that led me to this product!
Rating:  - Not worth the money.
This grill was just OK for me ... definitely not worth the money. After using it only 3x, I found that I would rather just broil or charcoal the meat. The first time I used it, I was excited to try T-bone steaks... couldn't wait to see how fast it cooked and thought the grill lines would be cool. Unfortunately, when the lid shut down on the steaks, the bones stopped the lid from closing completely causing them to cook unevenly. They turned out OK... a little rubbery. Not nearly as juicy as char-broiled (but I wrote it off as being one of the drawbacks of lean cooking). The 2nd time, I tried chicken tenderloin strips. They were good but after adding the basting solution, so that they wouldn't be so white, I had a mess to clean up... which brings me to the other reason that I bought the grill in the first place: Convince and easy cleanup. Turns out that it is much easier to clean something by immersing it in hot soapy water then to try to scrape and wipe. Took much longer and didn't really seem clean.
All in all, I am sorry I bought it - It's taking up too much space in my cupboard. I know a lot of people rave about it but I'm betting that those same people will have it on top of their garage sale pile in a few years.
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