I Pitty The Fool: The Flavor Wave

One of the presents Mel got for her b-day was the Flavor Wave. Her mom has something similar and a little older, but it works great. We were excited to check this one out, after seeing the infomercial. Mr. T, he's hilarious.. For the first use, you must put the temp to 500F and let run for 10 minutes to burn off unwanted manufacturing oils and what not. Our second use was to reheat some Costco pizza Mel's mom brought by minutes earlier. It's a little weird using this thing because I keep thinking I'm going to over cook when reheating foods. I'll have to get use to that.

The real reason we opened up the FW though was so that I could cook the nights dinner without having to use the oven. We were really hungry when I started making dinner last night, so we prepped the FW with pizza, however the main course was chicken breast. Usually when I cook any meat, I try to marinate it first then I sear it off in a pan and then put it in the oven to continue cooking. This time wasn't much different, except instead of the oven I used the FW.
Using the FW took a lot less time in preparation and in cooking. Usually I have to make use I turn the oven on at least 30 minutes before I plan on using it, longer if I'm using it at temperatures above 400F. And I think because the unit it smaller, more efficient and with less potential for heat loss, can cook much faster. To cook the chicken breasts, it took about 10-13 minutes, that is after I seared it off in a pan. I thought the chicken came out a little dry. Next time I would maybe put it lower in the glass pan/dish, so the meat isn't right on the cooking element.
Final product was chicken breast with a veggie sweet pepper pasta. Unfortunately in the end the meal didn't come out that great, in my opinion. I think this was due to mistakes or lack of forethought in my meal. All it takes is a few minutes to think a meal through in my head and sometimes I don't even do that, which results in a ho-hum meal. Next time, right? yeah..
In the end, the FW didn't get to dirty. And it turns out that not only is the FW dishwasher safe and easy to wash out by hand, but you can put about 1.5" of water in with some dish soap and turn it to the Wash setting for 10 minutes. The unit uses the heat and fan function to move the soapy water around and voila! pour out the water and it's clean. Now that's awesome!