A few months ago, I received a Sizzle-Q from the Little Griddle company in exchange for placing a link to their site on this blog. They didn't ask me to write any kind of product review, but after using the griddle, I knew that I had to let you all know about it.
As a "bbq guy," I've been gifted griddles in the past and, as many other cooks probably agree, I've found them to be pretty useless. The vast majority of the griddles on the market are flat, cast iron griddles made to go on the stovetop or the grill. They are very uneven in cooking and you never use one enough to get it properly seasoned like your trusty cast iron skillet. I won't even mention the ones with the slots that try to resemble grill marks. So, even though the Sizzle-Q had a different design and was made from stainless steel, I was still a little skeptical. But I decided to give it try on my outdoor gas grill.
Over the past several years, I have been cooking my proteins primarily in a cast iron skillet and my twenty-year-old DCS gas grill has been very neglected. The exterior of the grill is still very pristine, but it is time for some new grill grates. It seemed like perfect timing to just remove the grill grates and slap on the Sizzle-Q.
The Sizzle-Q fit perfectly on the grill and I used all three burners to get it going. I used just a little oil to season it up, then the burgers went right on. Just like a nice commercial griddle, it produced immaculate crust on both sides making for a perfect juicy burger (note: to make this perfect burger, use Bear Creek Farms beef). I was even able to use the Sizzle-Q to cook 36 burgers for a party over the weekend and it handled the task with ease as it can cook about twelve full-sized burgers at once. Whether cooking two burgers or twelve, the results were the same.
So what makes the Sizzle-Q so great? In my opinion it is all in the design. The griddle is lifted off the heating source and has a vent for air flow. This creates a much more even heating surface, which is especially important when working in volume, and it allows you to more easily control the overall temperature. Adding the little bit of oil to the surface allowed me to lift and flip the meat without the any of the common sticking issues that can cause problems when cooking in multiple batches and make cleanup difficult later. Overall, I was very impressed.
So, I'd say that if you are tired of trying to fool with your old griddle, or if you want to cook a burger on the grill - you already know you're not supposed to cook your burgers directly on the grill grates, right? - then it is time to get a Sizzle-Q.
You can find the Sizzle-Q and other Little Griddle products at Bass Pro Shops, your local specialty grill shop, or online at littlegriddle.com.
So you think your Silicone-Tipped Waffle Tongs are the coolest thing since sliced bread, but are you using the latest 2013 Williams Sonoma Cinder Block Crispy Skinner in ash grey?
Apron Sets
No one really wants one of these things.
BBQ Tool Set
If you want to get someone a nice spatula or tongs, that's fine. However, the items that come in these sets are crap.
Bacon Themed Anything
These were slightly funny about two years ago, but don't waste your money.
Hamburger Press
If you feel like someone needs a hamburger press, they probably shouldn't be making hamburgers.
Fork Thermometer
You shouldn't poke you meat with a fork to turn it or to get the temp of it, and the thermometer on these is about as accurate as this guy.
Grill Branding Iron
Clever idea? In theory maybe, but they don't work very well. Beef is too dark for it to really show up, and your chicken and pork really don't need to be branded for any reason.
Indoor Grill
A true grill master will fire up the grill in snow, sleet, rain, or a tornado. Also these things are a bitch to clean up.
I Can't Believe It's a Lighter
Is that a shotgun shell? That's a cute little camera. No, they are lighters silly.
Themed BBQ Sauce
Really? I like Georgia, but I don't need some generic bbq sauce just because it says Georgia on it.
Bottle Brush
Have you ever tried to use one of these? If you have, you would never buy this for someone.
Check back tomorrow for the 10 Best BBQ/Grill Gifts.
Scored this True GDM-26 fridge (that's 26 cubic feet) on Craigslist for $50. I'm going to make a few mods, and it will become a meat curing chamber. This pic does not show the Dr. Pepper wrap, but more to come.
Have you ever been annoyed in the mornings with a beeping alarm clock? Do you find yourself hitting the snooze button every morning? Do you get pissed when you wake up and breakfast is not ready? Well Matty Sallin has a solution to your problems. He has invented the Bacon Alarm Clock. This alarm clock does not beep and it won't blare any Rascal Flatts when you are trying start your morning. No this alarm clock wakes you up with the sweet smells of bacon. Read more here....
Thanks to Muzzy on the BBQ Forum for the heads up.
This weekend, I picked up an electric 2.5 gallon Tiny Titan water heater that I found on Craigslist. I also got the hole cut for the sink, and added a grey water tank.
I found this heavy duty cart on Craigslist for $30. I plan on cutting out a hole in the top and dropping in my sink. I am also looking at purchasing a 110v water heater that I will mount to the base of the cart. It has locking casters and a towel bar on the front.
It even has a place for my hose pipe.
Eventually I will either make this into a more permanent setup in my trailer, or I will get a three bay stainless sink mounted in my trailer.
It’s 2:00 am. Perhaps you’re battling a little insomnia. Perhaps your newborn needs feeding. Perhaps you’re just getting home. The bright glow from the television beckons...
Palm trees. Dollar signs. Faux-Tuscan kitchen sets.
As bold typefaces flash across the screen outlining easy payment installments, you enter the world of the infomercial. If it's not a get-rich-quick system or some form of exercising / bodybuilding / appearance enhancing / weight loss solution, it’s the world’s newest cooking device.
As the wife of my former employer had quite an appetite for home shopping, a number of these fine products made their way onto my desk then into my kitchen on birthdays and holidays. Here's a look at a few of the food and cooking novelties...as seen on TV.
The Product: THE GT XPRESS 101 Endorsed By: Cathy Mitchell and her over sized press-on nails The Gimmick:Fast Meals, Tasty Snacks and Delicious Desserts
Just pour your ingredients inside this newest incarnation of the George Foreman grill and in just minutes you'll have a piping hot meal with that rich burnt plastic smell!
Does it look well made on television? Rest assured, it isn’t. Teflon flakes become featured special ingredients in most of the 101 recipes. The two half-moon cooking pods are much smaller than they appear in the land of happy infomercial magic as well...and isn't it a little less than appetizing to have EVERYTHING come out as a compressed semi-circle? Maybe some find it comforting.
From brownies to omelets, it sure does cook your food fast though...reminding you that good things comes to those who wait.
The Product:THE PASTA EXPRESS Endorsed By:the infamous Chef Tony (not really a chef) The Gimmick:Cook, Strain and Drain
While the infomercial speaks of revolutionary insulation, the Pasta Express is nothing more than a big plastic tube. Besides being an overly tall and oddly shaped device that doesn’t fit very well in your cupboard, it does nothing. And how exactly is it a faster, express tool? Tired of waiting for water to boil, you say? You still have to boil the water! You are, in fact, adding a step as you have to boil the water in another pot or kettle then awkwardly pour the steaming hot liquid into the tube in order to make your gummy, half-cooked noodles.
I did try to use the device for other things. I made red drink in it a couple of times, but it doesn’t even work well as a pitcher because it lacks any kind of pouring spout.
The Product:THE S'MORES WIZARD Endorsed By:the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man The Gimmick:What could be more fun than making fresh, hot S'mores right in the convenience of your own home?
Despite the fact that the name wizard implies some sort of magical, supernatural S’More-making abilities…you essentially get a sterno candle with a metal grate. And in addition to the marshmallows, that high-quality coating on the metal grate likes to burn too!
It does arrive stocked for your first use, coming with stale graham crackers (half broken / half crumbled), rock hard marshmallows and white chocolate (not actual white chocolate, rather milk chocolate that’s turned powdery white from seasons spent on warehouse shelves). You can make your indoor S’Mores with a candle and much fresher ingredients instead, but it still isn’t the same without the campfire.
The Product:THE BIG CITY SLIDER STATION Endorsed By:Billy Mays, his highly manicured beard and his famous overly excited yell-speak The Gimmick:Scoop, Press and Cook
Making hamburgers on your stovetop in two minutes? Scooping ground beef directly from the package to the pan with no seasoning? Even before the mention of “veggie burgers” in the ad, I knew there was no need to own this product.
The Product: THE MAGIC BULLET Endorsed By:ah yes, The Mick and Mimi Show (see below) The Gimmick:Does any job in 10 seconds…or less.
If you google magic bullet, in addition to stumbling upon various JFK conspiracy theories, you’ll find an informercially-born product that is actually worth the three easy payments. As a cross between a blender and a food processor, the bullet has both a flat blade (for whipping and mincing) and a bent blade (for chopping fruit and veggies and crushing ice). It isn’t as heavy duty as your standard kitchen food processor and it walks too fine a line between chopping and pulverizing things like cheese, garlic, and onion – but it’s a good tool for making dips and spreads and an excellent tool for making margaritas, daiquiris, smoothies and the like. The design makes it pretty easy to use, store and wash, too.
Then, there's The Mick and Mimi Show. Defying all standard infomercial conventions, two cross-continental lovers invite an eclectic mix of friends over (including a blatant drunk and an overly made-up chain smoker) upon whom they casually push their wares:
The Product:SHAMWOW Endorsed By: Vince The Gimmick:You'll say WOW everytime.
This entire post was inspired by a recent late evening viewing of the ShamWOW! infomercial. I don't own a ShamWOW! but boy do I wish that I did. When flipping through the channels, I will stop and watch this infomercial every time that I see it because I'm mesmerized by Vince, the ShamWOW! spokesman. His left eye looks like it might pop out of his head if his ShamWOW! picks up one more ounce of cola. He looks eerily similar to Harvey Dent in the second portion of The Dark Knight. Why is he wearing a headpiece microphone? I don't know, but I feel the live excitement of that microphone. It's a shammy, it's a towel, it's a ShamWOW. Someday, perhaps I'll be able to report back on how this product works in the kitchen...
This is what it's come to at the BP household when it's time to fry something up in the cast iron skillet. I got fed up with spending three times as long cleaning up all the grease as I spent cooking the food. I'm sure this is probably a horrendous fire hazard, but it works.
I have been wanting to make a pizza on the BGE for some time now. Well, this weekend I got a pizza stone and I was ready to get going. If you search the web, you will find many different techniques on cooking a pizza in the Egg. I decided to go with a pretty standard approach of setting the stone on an inverted plate setter.
For my first attempt, I purchased a Boboli crust. With the crust taken care of, I decided to go full steam with the toppings. I may have gone a little overboard, but I can tend to do that sometimes.
This pizza was topped with diced black olives, diced jalapeño peppers, chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, feta cheese, pepper jack cheese, and Italian Sausage (first grilled on the egg).
I think that one of the big keys here is the crust. I used the store-bought prepared crust, but as with everything, I'm sure that making my own crust or purchasing dough from a local shop would be better. I coated the top of the crust with a thin layer of olive oil followed by roasted garlic marinara sauce. I then added layers of mozzarella cheese, sharp white cheddar, asiago and parmesan - next time, I'd actually go with a little less cheese. With the sauce and cheese base, I began piling on the toppings.
The pizza turned out pretty tasty for a first attempt. Next, I am looking forward to making my own crust and doing my lobster b.l.t pizza on the Egg soon.
I think next time I will also scrape that grease off the plate setter to prevent this:
Thanks to the in-laws, I now have a new BGE Table (with Wheels!). Now all the Ulika Kitchen is missing is the Elite 7 (scheduled to be delivered Jan. 23rd). Thanks to Dawson for the custom piece of limestone to place between the egg and the table. Dawson is a Ulika team member as well as a stone carver. Check out his web site here.
The table that was scheduled to be delivered before Christmas has finally arrived. I put the first coat of polyurethane on the table, and I will be adding two more coats. After that, the table will be ready for action. I will post pictures as I progress through the process.
First of all, the Egg is back. The kind folks at Embers in Cool Springs were very helpful in getting me the piece that I needed to make my Egg whole again. With the Egg back intact, I was able to use my newest toy - the BBQ Guru.
I have been cooking bbq now for a few years and I've known about the guru for sometime, but I was always a little hesitant about the whole idea of a fan controlled cooker. Well let me tell you, this has to be the greatest bbq accessory ever. The guru allows you to set the temperature of the pit and a fan control keeps the temp constant. Last night, I put two pork butts on the egg at 4:00am and went to bed. I woke up and wrapped the butts when they hit 165-degrees and then pulled them off at 195. I never once had to adjust the dampers or even worry about my temperature. The guru did all the work. Two 10-pound pork butts cooked in just 11 hours. After the butts came off, I ramped up the temp to 275 and put on 2 racks of baby backs.
I am really going to enjoy this new device. It will allow me to completely keep my focus on the food without having to worry about the temperature maintenace at all. If you have a cooker and the guru works with it, I highly recommend the purchase.
With my time off during the holidays, I decided to undertake a much needed project. With the egg disaster and my recent purchase of the Stumps Smoker, I was really in need of a level cooking area. With my old stick burner, I used jacks to level out the trailer and I had been using some plywood to level off my egg.
With the assistance of my father-in-law (thanks John),the nail gun (thanks Ben), and the hammer drill (thanks Matt), I built a mini deck right off the Ulika Kitchen. We placed extra reinforcements where the Stumps is going to "live" because the thing weighs 1100 pounds. The Egg will have a new home on the deck as well as I received an Egg Table for my birthday. Since I now have a guru for the egg and the Stumps uses a guru, I needed some electricity outside. We added a plug outside as well as some flood lights pointed directly at the 2 cookers. Future Home of the Stumps Elite 7
Now I am just waiting for the Stumps (January 23rd) and the Egg Table (any day now). Pictures to follow...
On the menu for Sunday night, Ribeye Steaks. These steaks were cut from a standing rib roast that I purchased a few weeks ago from Publix. If you are new to this blog or don't know me, I am a very big proponent of Publix. In the future, I plan on blogging about Publix's superior quality, especially when it comes to the Meat Dept. For now enjoy the pictures from tonight.
I finally had the opportunity to use my new cast iron grate for the BGE. Notice the nice grill marks that the cast iron grate creates.
Recently, team Ulika found a great deal on an egg on Craig's List. We've been eyeing these things since we cooked next to an all-egg team in Lenoir City in 2006. We got a comprehensive sales pitch, errr, breakdown of how cool the eggs the really are.
If I had to recommend one backyard grill, this would be it. You can go low and slow or hot and fast. The ceramic cooker allows the heat to be retained for long, slow cooks - making it perfect for cooking small amounts of BBQ (one to two butts). On the hot and fast side, you can sear steaks at temperatures over 750 degrees for great crust.
The egg can be used for baking as well, cooking breads, pizzas, meat loaf and more...team Ulika looks forward to experimenting with egg baking in the future. The egg may also become the team's new competition chicken cooker.
