** UPDATE: Apologies for including a video that was on auto-start! Changed to screen capture. Click over to their site to watch the actual video! **

Apparently, amateur video making and sharing is all the rage, with new sites popping up faster than dandelions on cow manure. I am guessing they are all hoping to become the next YouTube.

TastyFood.tv is a new site that is worth checking out because it has a variety of food videos ranging from people cooking their favorite recipes to experiences in restaurants to walk-throughs of markets. Right now there seems to be a heavily Asian bent, or at least a very active user who is doing Thai cooking. The above video is a how-to for Panang Curry.

I eat a lot of tofu, not because I'm vegan/vegetarian and have to eat some sort of protein, but because tofu tastes good to me. (My being Asian and eating tofu all my life might have something to do with this, too.)

Now, it is just way too easy to pick up several blocks of tofu from the market for ninety-nine cents each, sometimes less when it's on sale, but if you have some time on your hands, you can make tofu at home, per the above video above from Cool Hunting. All you need is 150 g of dried soybeans, calcium sulfate, and the foresight to start soaking the dried soybeans the night before.

To promote their new blender, the Total Blend, Blendtec decided to try and prove exactly how powerful it is. Instead of making the margaritas, smoothies or other crushed-ice concoctions that are normally favored by the blender industry when demonstrating functionality, Blendtec is using iPods, lightbulbs, coke cans and golf clubs to prove their product's superiority. By blending them.

Their Will it Blend? website has a huge collection of videos of the stunts that host Tom Dickson has attempted in the lab. Some of the top rated videos include whole oysters, Thanksgiving dinner and Cochicken.

Since the average person isn't - and shouldn't be - using their blender to chop up golf clubs, there is a section of videos that demonstrate safe blendings to try at home if you get the urge to blend after watching some of more extreme videos.

[thanks elise]

At this point, we all know what happens when you combine Mentos and Diet Coke, but what about combinations of other sodas with other candies? Will they produce similar, or perhaps even more spectacular, results? Thanks to a video linked to by Brian, from Candy Addict, we now know the answer to this subset of life's little mysteries. These film makers bravely tested the following combinations in the name of science: candy corn and root beet, Sweetarts and Sprite and Toucan Toes and milk. Check out the video above to see their results.

I think we'll all sleep a little better tonight, although not quite as good as I'll sleep once I learn where I can get some of those Toucan Toes....

A well-cut ham should be as symmetrical as an accordion, but carving up the Easter centerpiece isn't always the easiest. task. RecipeTips offers a detailed guide to carving ham, showing how to carve up different cuts of ham ranging from a whole ham to a butt ham, while Jones Dairy Farm also has a list of videos for cutting up the meat. More knife action is available on Cooking.com, which offers an instructional video on both preparing and cutting the meat. Tips recommended by these sites include using a very sharp thin knife and letting the ham cool 10 minutes before cutting so the juice is redistributed.

 

 

We may have covered most of the "best of 2005" lists, with topics from MMMM to NNNNN, but funny food videos is one we missed. Fortunately, Saute Wednesday didn't miss this important topic in their slightly belated Best of 2005 List. They picked out a Flambe Disaster! clip, which really shows the value of having a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, in addition to being funny. Incidentally, the apartment kitchen in which it takes place looks shockingly like my college apartment. I kept my extinguisher under the sink, guys!

The best clip of the year was definitely from an episode of Saturday Night Live, where they paid tribute to Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes in the most highly esteemed of media: a rap song.

But first, my hunger pangs are sticking like duct tape
Let's hit up magnolia and mack on some cupcakes
No doubt, that bakery's got all the bomb frosting.
I love those cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling
2 no 6 no 12, bakers dozen!
I told you that I'm crazy for these cupcakes, cousin!

Update: The YouTube video (above) was removed, but you can hear the song here.