Marshall continues this series with quick steaks. Its time to re-evaluate power assumptions about things like electric grills to see if these useful appliances can be practically used in the right sized genverter system. If so, you can move off grid sooner with less kitchen equipment? Last time, Jackie did barbecue beef in the crock pot.
Well, it happened in Walmart the other day. We were near the checkout and it happened, something that never happens to me, an impulse buy. There it was, the George Foreman indoor electric grill, for only twenty bucks! I don’t remember, but I probably muttered something like, “business expense” as Jackie raised her eyebrows at the purchase. Wanted to try another electric appliance for our readers, and here it was, and for steaks!
You’re the man, you should do the grilling this time, she said. No problem. The appliance has a heated upper and lower plate and claims very short cooking times (4-10 minutes). Upon close inspection, I realized there’s really nothing new under the sun, like old king Solomon once said. This is a glorified waffle iron with special “steak” plates. Nonetheless, it was a great excuse to have steaks for dinner!
You might not read the instructions on something simple like this, it has no controls, just a plug. It is a 1000W load and the instructions indicated that it should be pre-heated for 5 minute. Not sure how the power numbers would be on this. I pulled out my handy dandy Kill-A-Watt power monitor and warmed the unit up as indicated.
We had six Eye of Round steaks to cook, and I managed to put 4 in for the first round. Another 5 minutes, and they were ready as advertised. It was surprising to see that it was that fast. I put the last two in for another 5 minutes, and they were done as well.
Jackie made salads, and we had a great dinner. The power numbers were not that bad, because the appliance is a large intermittent load similar to my espresso machine. Overall it was lighter on power then slow cooking in the crock pot.
Power Data:
Model: George Foreman Electric grill
Test time: 15 minutes
Watt Hours used: 160 WH
This was a surprisingly efficient use of our power and we’ll get Jackie to find more uses for this grill! Maybe grilled cheese sandwiches? Maybe you have some ideas? Tell us all about them below in the comment section now!
(A special thanks to Arild, who planted this idea that hatched at Walmart!)
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A nice lunch I often have is a california style salad garnished with grilled prawns or maybe sliced chicken breast. It only takes 3 minutes to cook the prawns and maybe 6 minutes at most for a boneless and skinless chicken breast.
Amanda says to dip shrimps and vegetables being lightly grilled in olive oil before placing them on grille. That way they do not stick or burn. Sprinkling the grilled food with a bit of lemon pepper while it is being grilled enhances the flavor.
Thanks for the tips. I was worried that chicken took longer, but we’ll give it a try soon!
Slice a raw potato into slices 1/4″thick. place these in a bowl and just cover with olive oil. Then sprinkle with garlic, cajun or regular pepper to taste. Shake bowl to distribute spices evenly. Place slices on grille and cook for 8 minutes. Slice an onion and place onion rings on potatoes when potato slices are half done (4 minute mark) Serve with the steaks.
When its -20 below or colder the BBQ simply doesn’t do a good job of cooking outdoors. We often lightly grille vegetables that can be sliced as a sort of Kabob style vegetarian meal. Fish filet cook in about 3 minutes so be careful. We tried BASA fish but haven’t caught a good salmon yet.
After telling a friend about George Foreman grilles he told me he had spoilt his first couple of meals by forgetting to look at the clock soon enough. The first advice I had was get a wind up timer but then realized he would often get busy and wander away doing other things. The solution was a timer to actually turn off the grille after so many minutes.
AS luck would have it, there was a junked microwave oven at the recycle shed. I cannibalized it by stripping out the circuit board and keyboard containing the timer. These always have 120V AC power relays to control the magnetron. After stripping away all the excess wiring from the safety interlock switches I had a compact precision timer that was programmable to seconds and even a delayed start. This all fit into a simple wooden case with an outlet socket at the end. Power consumption of the timer circuit measured 0.05 watts on my Kill-o Watt meter. Now We can control the exact time of cooking for the perfectly done steaks or hamburgers etc.
Caution! If you plan to run such a timer on MSW inverters get one of the ovens with a mechanical wind up clock, not a digital version. Pure digital versions have a clock chip that times on the zero crossing of the waveforms. They tend to run fast on MSW waveforms.
Thanks Arild, I never knew that the MSW waveform tends to make some kinds of clocks run fast. Older clocks did count zero crossings to mark of time, and the X10 power control stuff does too. I would think that these clock devices would on average, ‘hunt’ around the right place and be moderately accurate.
Reliance on line power for timing is becoming a thing of the past. Most digitial timing devices have a standard 32.nnn Khz crystal and timing chip for accurate time keeping. I remember trying to make a real time clock based on counting a cpu 4Mhz pulse. Getting accuracy better than 5 minutes / month was impossible!
Yes its true, new modern clocks typically have a crystal clock time base but older clock circuits did not. And in most cases scrounging older microwave ovens from the dump is likely to get you an older clock circuit design. I was talking about scrounging old ovens tossed out because the the magnetron had failed.
No one is going to cannibalize a new microwave oven.
To All,
I have always said life is a learning curve even up to death, though an old man now, I have learn quite a lot from your combined comments today in this column, so thank you all.
David Ponsonby…
I’m enjoying this series on cooking appliances. If you’d like an idea for the next installment, might I suggest one of my favorites, the Rice Cooker. In addition to making perfect rice (and even steaming veggies simultaneously) it is also great for soups, oatmeal/porridge (and other breakfast cereals), pasta, and much more. All you need is a very basic one with a simple mechanical cook/off (or cook/warm) switch. The small ones(3-cup dry/6-cup cooked capacity) cost under $20 and are 300 watts; at 20-30 minutes for a typical cook cycle, that’s only 100-150 watt-hours per meal!
Mike´s last [type] ..Minority By Choice
Mike thats a great idea. Makes me wonder what rice dishes we might make in the crock pot as well ….
Other than the timer is there any difference between a crock pot and a rice cooker?
There’s quite a lot of difference. I own both, and each has it’s uses. A crock pot is designed to slowly heat up to a simmer (not quite boiling) and maintain that slow, even temperature for a relatively long time. A rice cooker, OTOH, is designed to quickly bring the contents to a full boil and maintain that boil until either the temperature rises (indicating that all the liquid has been absorbed) or it is manually turned off. So the rice cooker is good for foods that cook quickly at boiling temperature, or for steaming, and a crock pot is for foods that benefit from slow cooking at a lower temperature. While rice can be cooked in a crock pot, it takes considerably longer, and the results are often inconsistent and cooking uneven (some spots undercooked and others overcooked in the same batch). The exception would be throwing rice into a crock pot soup or stew that will remain liquid, adding the rice with all the other ingredients at the start of cooking.
Mike´s last [type] ..Minority By Choice
Thanks Mike. I suspected as much but lacking a Rice cooker to test I did not know. I learned to like plug in counter top appliances when I live full time in an RV. Being limited to a 30 amp feed quickly teaches you to economize power use. Cooking with propane is not really an option when there is 6″ of snow on the RV roof. Propane releases too much moisture into the interior and condenses on windows and cool walls turning the whole RV into a damp hole with lots of mold on everything. Ventilation with air that is 10 degrees below freezing has its own disadvantages. Hence electric cooking is advantageous.
Mike which kind of rice do you use? We have developed a preference for basmatic rice as opposed to the chinese or japanese sticky rice. It cooks quickly in a regular pot in about 10-15 minutes.
As part of my ongoing research into how appliances reaqlly work I dismantled one of those water cooler machines that also deliver hot water. Unlike the older models the chiller is a solid state Peltier celll imbedded into the insulated wall of aq small container. the draw by the Peltier Cell is 98 warrs and the container holds 25 ounces. A similar sized stainless steel container holds 25 oz of water and a timer circuit heats the water for 90 seconds. The heater element does draw a whopping 1200 watts but only for 90 seconds. Conpare this to a tipical kettle used to heat water with
@Arild (oddly, no “reply” link on the message I am actually commenting on – perhaps the system only allows nesting to a few levels. Anyway…)
I too live in an RV full time, but wouldn’t do it in the kind of cold climate you describe. I spend my winters in Arizona, where it might dip below freezing on the coldest nights. Still, there are times when a small electric appliance just does the job better or more conveniently than can be done stovetop. The electric consumption isn’t a big concern when I have shore power, but when I’m off-grid and running on solar I have to be more mindful.
You asked what rice I use; just plain old genereic medium- or short-grain white rice most of the time, THe cooker can, however, cook any kind of rice. The basmatic you mention should cook very similarly to white, while brown rice takes a bit longer. Cooking time is adjusted by the quantity of water used… more water equals longer cooking time. The manual (such as it is) that comes with the cooker will get you started, and after a couple tries and a bit of experimentation you’ll know just exactly how to make your favorite rice come out perfectly.
Mike´s last [type] ..Minority By Choice
Living off grid can be somewhat desolate as far as socializing and entertainment goes. Quite often the highlight of a hard days’s struggle with everyday work problems is the evening meal time. It’s a time for relaxing and enjoyment of a nicely prepared and cooked meal. Just slopping something together because you are ravenous is not enough in my opinion. I learned to cook properly in self defense because I could not afford to dine out often and could not stand five consecutive meals of beans and vieners. Factory prepared soups contain too much salt at 25% – 37% according to can label. The only solution was to learn how to cook from scratch.
While living first in a boat and later in an RV I learned the importance of energy conservation. Now that I have spent a decade designing and building power systems for boats and RV it goes much easier.
Part of that design research was to determine the most energy effective methods of cooking electrically. Many wives simply will not deal with propane since they view it as an explosive gas. Running a genset every time you want to make a cup of coffee or toast a slice of bread is horribly inefficient.
One product I used to consider a horrible waste of energy was the water cooler. Older models had a refrigerator style compressor and semed like a big energy waster. Recently short counter top models have shown up on the market.They offer both hot and cold water delivery. I dismantled one I found at the dumpster. Inside is a Peltier cell cooled container and for hot water there is a tiny hot water on demand type tank. The Peltier cell tank holds about 22 ounces of water and is thermostat regulated. The tank is surrounded by 1″ or so of closed cell foam insulation. Much better than the old style.
The ‘on-demand’ instant hot water tank also holds about 22 ounces of water with a 1100 watt element at the bottom of the tank. A timer relay runs the heater element for about 90 seconds bringing the water to near boiling and hot enough for a cup of tea or hot chocolate. When the demand cycle finishes there is no power drain except for the LED lights.
Now that I have had a chance to examine this product ( brand Name “POLAR”) I agree with their claim that this product is green. Heating up exactly 22 ounces of water for two cups of tea or chocolate is more energy efficient that starting up a kettle for five minutes using asimilar sized element. For the chilled water, again an insulated tank holding 22 oz. is more efficient than a compressor cooling down a big jug inside a 11 – 18 cubic foot fridge.