"instructables" news and stories

No this isn't a picture of some freaky '80s inspired outsider art, but it could be. It's from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories' step-by-step tutorial on how to cook your own papadum with pictures over at Instructables.

Apparently making the crispy Indian wafers at home is a breeze. Just pick up some at your friendly neighborhood Indian grocery store. The store these folks go to offers two choices, scary bunny and plain package. Oddly enough, the ones in the plain package are spicy.

Before they're cooked, papads are thin and crunchy. When I was in college I didn't know you had to cook them so my buddies and would use them like tortilla chips whenever we had our lime pickle eating contests. Had I only known how easy they are to cook, just place them right over your gas burner and be prepared to quickly flip.

Source

Continuing with the industrious, DIY-style posts of a few days ago, here's a Make post with instructions for a meat dehydrator made from a milk crate. Of course, there are a few other components, like a PC fan, t-shirts, some bicycle inner tubes, and some sleeping pad foam. Amazingly enough, I think I have all of that stuff around my house. Not all of it is technically mine, but who would care about their useless bike and an overheated computer when they've got fresh jerky? Coincidentally enough, the Make page links back to the culinary commandos at Instructables. Thankfully, they're still using their skills for the forces of good, or at least jerky.

After I found the cooking with your car engine photo-tutorial on Instructables, I did a little more browsing around and found something even more, um, impressive. Yes, this is a recirculating fountain brimming with "a gushing torrent of delicious, piping hot gravy." Roughly 10 gallons of it. What's more, the fountain uses peristaltic action to move the gravy, just like us. Yep, a series of moving rollers pushed that gravy from a stockpot in the base, through a rubber hose and up to a tasteful silver bowl. There's even a video clip of the fountain in action. It's surprisingly loud. Gravy and plywood: always a winning combination.