Bathe it in Italian salad dressing for 45-60 minutes prior to cooking it. Simple but will wind up tasting awesome.

For the smashed potatoes, 2 things. First, leave the skin on. Second, roast a clove of garlic ahead of time and smash that into the spuds. Real butter and hot chicken stock instead of whatever else you might use to make them more creamy.

If you are cooking steaks on a piece of cheap nasty plastic developed by a brain-damaged boxer you need psychiatric help found in the telephone directory under "self-harm"

Spend some of your hard-earned poker dollars on a non-stick coated cast iron griddle or frying pan which feels like it would break your foot if you dropped it on it. The heavier the better; thick iron spreads heat better than aluminium or cheap alloys and generates a searing and even scorch onto your steaks. Usually a good idea to heat it with some oil in and then wash it out before you use it. Put it on the hob (or whatever you call the hot things on top of your oven/cooker in america) and whack it up to the max. It should be so hot you can see the air shimmering above, and a tiny bit of smoke if you didnt clean off the last lot of oil quite as well as you might've (!).

Grab a beer.

Now, take the delicious steaks that you bought earlier that day and which have been sat in your kitchen at room temperature (NOT getting tough and fibrous in the fridge or, much worse, the freezer). Whack on the pan. It will hiss and sizzle like hell. If it's an inch or so thick you're looking at about 2 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Add another minute for medium, another on top of that for well done and another minute or two for brown/burnt if you're a masochist. Always cook on the rarer side of what you like; you can always throw it back on for a minute but you can't take the heat out if you brown it too much!

Give it about a minute on a plate to rest and seal in the juices when you take it off the heat. This is important for it to taste f'ing great. Not long enough for it to get cold, though, but it shouldn't cool too quick until you cut into it.

Have lots of cool beer and some thick cut potato wedges or french fries on the side. Green salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar hits the spot too, if you're keen to include something semi-healthy. If you've never tried steak with bearnaise sauce, find a recipe and give it a try, it's a doddle to make and is DELICIOUS with medium-rare steaks. Oh, and buy the best steaks for you, people tend to buy particular fillets or t-bones because they're told they ought to; trust your own tastebuds and go for one you find tastey, and buy the best you can afford.

The GF grill is great for lots of things but it isn't hot enough to cook steaks. Nowhere near. You'll end up steaming them and they will taste like Bielsebub's wife's used sanitary towels. Honestly.

Ah, if you're one of those wierdos who orders your steak "blue" in a restaurant, you need to get the pan VERY hot (as before), crush the steak down on one side until you see the edges going brown and then flip and do the same. The whole procedure should take no more than 2 minutes on a hot pan, if that. Make sure you go to a good butcher for your steaks and make sure they've been refrigerated in their shop life because you'll be eating literally raw meat in the middle of your steak (hygeinicaly speaking).

thanks for all the info guys! I will defientely be coming back over this thread to try the different reciepies...i still haven't picked which one i'm gonna use for tonight. my supplies are limited at the moment though, my car was just towed away to be repaired.

i'll let you know how it goes.


btw...the foreman is my only option as a grill isn't allowed in this apartment complex.

You can use non stick cast iron or porcelain covered cat iron (which I prefer)---Le Creuset is the best brand---not cheap, but 2 all purpose pieces will last you the rest of your life...

Here's a pretty quick and easy one, assuming you have a non-stick skillet:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes ... 32,00.html

You can experiment with the sauce -- I usually go with a white wine/lemon/butter type sauce rather than apple cider.