The Cuisinart Griddler

A Christmas would not be complete without some kitchen gadget finding its way into my life and this year was no exception. And it makes it easier to “experiment” in the kitchen which is good for both you and me! I wanted a Cuisinart Griddler and that was really the only kitchen thing I wanted. And yes, I did get it!

Let me go back and say that I was already thinking about pulling the old George Foreman grill (I tried to find a link online but I guess mine is so old that they don't even make it anymore!) out of storage (sorry, George!) but had not yet. With the Foreman, I loved that it grilled stuff and drained off the fat. I did NOT love that it was SO hard to clean. That problem is mostly solved with this Griddler because it has plates that are removable and dishwasher-safe AND the top does not close on a hinge, per se, but sits on top of whatever is cooking. It is like the best of both worlds. I do love it.

So on Christmas morning, we made pancakes for breakfast. I did not want to spend all day cooking so I found a recipe on, guess where? Of course, allrecipes.com for pancakes where you just thrown all the ingredients into the blender. Blend it up, and cook it. (It has been so long since I made it that I cannot even find it on the site, but I know it is there!) I loved the concept. The kids loved the taste. It had a lot of sugar in it and it was kind of sweet. Like I said, the kids loved it. It also might be great for a sweet fruit topping or whatever. But when you are adding syrup, which is already sweet enough, it was just a little too sweet. I will tweak this or find another one soon. But they turned out great!

And then the next day we had leftover ham, so began two days of paninis for lunch! I made ham & cheese paninis twice in it with the grill plates. It was amazing. The day after Christmas, we had planned to make burgers, but the outdoor grill was covered with snow, so the Griddler came to the rescue and we had them indoors. They tasted amazing and cooked super-fast, what with cooking on two sides at once, however, the Griddler could apparently not drain the fat fast enough on these uber-greasy burgers. The plates were really dirty (gotta love that dishwasher-safe thing!) and even under the plates got greasy and when I tried to clean it the next day, it would NOT come clean. I might be stuck with a dirty thing forever. The good thing is that the plates look wonderful, so no one knows about the dirty insides but me. However, it just really bothers me that it got so messed up on the second day!