Battlesphere

A truly innovative game, Battlesphere is a "shooter" with a twist: you're riding in a futuristic vehicle composed of a frame surrounding an inflatable ball. The rotation of the ball powers the craft forward. As the pilot, you're inside the ball. You roam around the arena picking up weapons and firing them at opponents to burst their ball. The last man left un-popped wins.

The physics of the vehicle as you roam the landscape are great; it's almost as much fun to just drive around as it is to battle your opponents. Later vehicles have much better handling characteristics.

Give it a try!

Battlesphere Wipe out all your opponents before your Sphere is destroyed!

Play this free game now!!

Flight late or canceled? You need to know rule 240

There's a little-known rule in the airline industry that requires airlines to fly you on another carrier in the event that their flight is canceled. If you travel, here's what you need to know.

Rule 240, at MSNBC

New online game: Fancy Pants 2

Fancy Pants 1 is a fantastic free online flash game; it's a creative adventure side-scroller with great physics and environments.

A demo of Fancy Pants 2 was released some time ago (a year or two perhaps?), which showcased some remarkable improvements....and then, nothing. Silence. Fans of the demo waited so long for the full version, we forgot what we were waiting for!

Today, the developer Brad Borne has released Fancy Pants 2! Give it a try, it's fun for all ages.

http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/fpa-world-2/FPAWorld2.swf


Controls:

• Left and right to move
• Up to open doors
• Down while running to slide or roll
• S to jump
• To kill the baddies, jump on them or slide into them. If you land on them still pressing S, you'll permanently get them off the level. Without, you'll just stun them
• If you jump onto a wall, and jump again, you will jump off it and (if there's another wall nearby) onto that one. You can scale closely-spaced parallel walls that way
• The snail and golf holes are explained in-game
  

The Tortilla Post, Part 2

If you recall from my earlier post on making tortillas, I commented that while I had made flour tortillas, I had not yet made corn tortillas. These are most easily formed with a tortilla press, though certainly some Mexican moms form these quickly and easily just with their fingers. Not being a Mexican mom, and lacking the motivation to develop this skill, I dreamed idly if owning a tortilla press someday, musing in the earlier post that maybe Santa would bring me one.

Apparently, Santa reads this blog. Look what I found under the tree on Christmas morning!





If there's anything you want for Christmas, be sure to leave it in the comments before Santa reads it again next year!

The silver thing with the handle is a tortilla press. It's made of cast-iron; the silver color is from a rough anti-rusting coating. The simple machine is made of two discs of iron hinged at the bottom, and a handle that presses them together, squashing the masa harina (dough made from water and corn flour) into a perfect little tortilla.

The circular pan on the right is a comal, which is a cast-iron pan with no sides, and used specifically for making tortillas. It's not necessary - you can use an ordinary cast-iron or other skillet - but it's fun to have an "authentic" piece of cookware for the job.

They're both about 7" wide, perfect for cranking out small corn tortillas.

As luck would have it, my wife had some beef, peppers, and onions on-hand for me to make fajitas. What's more, she even bought some corn flour just days before on a grocery shopping trip. What a happy coincidence!

My head tortilla chef (7 y/o son) has been having as much fun as I have with these.

In addition to fajitas, I also made up a recipe for "Breakfast Tacos". There is nothing remotely authentic about this recipe. It probably doesn't even qualify as Americanized Tex-Mex. Anyway, the kids like it. To make your own:


Breakfast Tacos

Ingredients for tortillas:
2 c. masa harina flour
1c. water

Ingredients for filling:
6 eggs, scrambled with milk
1/2 t. chili powder
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
4 slices bacon, diced
grated cheese
sour cream
salsa
wedge of lime

To prepare:
Mix masa harina and set aside
Fry bacon in cast-iron skillet.
Just before it's done, add the onion and pepper.

As they finish together, scoop them to one side in the pan, and sprinkle in chili powder to taste into the hot oil. You're essentially cooking the spices, which softens them up so they're not gritty, and releases the flavor into the oil. The oil, in turn, then distributes the flavor throughout the food. Oil is a wonderful carrier of spices. That's one of the reasons spicy oily foods taste good - the flavors are carried in the oil, which then coats your tongue.

After 20-30 seconds, add the eggs, and stir until you get scrambled eggs.

Hopefully, you've been making tortillas as you've been cooking the eggs, because it's time to eat!

Making corn tortillas with a press is very easy compared to rolling flour tortillas. Lay a piece of wax paper or plastic on the bottom plate, put a small ball of masa harina on the wax paper, and lay a second piece on top. Use the press to flatten the dough. Open the press, peel off the top layer of wax paper, and flop the tortilla onto your hand. Carefully peel off the other layer of wax paper, and lay the tortilla onto the hot comal or skillet. Cook for about 30 seconds on side A, side B, then side A again, and stack them onto a plate. They should begin to puff during cooking, which is the steam cooking the insides.

Some tips:
You want to avoid overcooking, which will leave them too stiff to fold. It's also important that the masa harina be a stiff dough, the consistency of a stiff cookie dough, otherwise you won't be able to get it off the wax paper.

To serve:
Scoop a spoonful of egg mixture into a line down the center of your tortilla, and top with your favorite taco condiments. The boys like theirs smothered in cheese and sour cream. In fact, I think they think that tortillas are just a medium for eating cheese and sour cream.
Heather likes hers with the same, plus some salsa.
My choice was to top the eggs with a little cheese, and using a wedge of fresh lime, sprinkle lightly with lime juice. It cuts through the oils and creates makes a fresh, light, almost tropical flavor.

Fold, and enjoy!

Grilling The Perfect Steak

Every weekend, dads across the country pull out their favorite grill and utensils, and cook up something delicious for the family. It’s a fun ritual that is an ingrained and iconic part of American fatherhood. I use my gas grill right through the winter – it’s not just a fair-weather sport! The charcoal one gets stored, though, I’m not that crazy.

Yes, I did say “dads” and not “parents.” For some reason, the grill is the domain of the dad. Standing in front of a grill, with a beer in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other is the recipe for happiness for many of us. And why wouldn’t it be? We have the essentials: beer, fire, meat, tools, and we’re providing for our family. This is an activity that stimulates the cro-magnon part of our brain that wasn’t lost to evolution. As a result, we take great pride in our grill-skills.

For the same reason, grilling can be somewhat mysterious, as if the guys who do it really well have some kind of black-magic voodoo to make it come out so good. Here, I’m going to share my technique for grilling the perfect steak. This technique works only for better cuts of boneless steak such as New York strip, Delmonico/rib-eye (again, no rib), or filet mignon. Larger cuts (like top round) and those with the bone in (such as a porterhouse) will require different grilling methods.

First, you need to start with a decent cut of meat. I usually buy NY strips as a whole loin, and have it cleaned and cut to approximately 1.25” thick steaks. While expensive up front, this is more economical by the pound. It usually works out to about $5-$6 a pound, while supermarket steaks are much more ($8-$10 and up). The store-bought ones are usually cut too thin, anyway. For the ones you won’t be cooking, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and then place in a freezer bag, and then of course, freeze. You don’t want to damage your treasures! An additional advantage is that you’ve got nearly identical pieces of meat allowing you to experiment with different grilling times without having to account for differences due to the meat between experiments

Seasoning

This is a debate that will never be definitively solved; it’s probably been raging since the first cave-man spread some herbs on his meat prior to cooking, and his dinner companion complained about the flavor.

To season or not to season, that is the question…aye, there’s the rub (Ha! Get it? Rub? I crack myself up).

Within the “to season” camp, you have debates between marinades and a dry rub (dry seasoning mix).

I’ve tried them all, and my perennial favorite for steaks is simply dunking them in a melted butter and olive-oil mixture (just enough oil to keep the butter a liquid longer) or spreading on butter, then sprinkling liberally with coarse salt and fresh coarsely-cracked black pepper and pressing it into the meat with my fingertips. Don’t bother using table salt, use the coarse kosher stuff. You don’t want the salt dissolving – it’s supposed to form a nice crust with the peppercorns. Plus, the small grains and strong flavor of ordinary table salt could overpower the meat. The pepper cannot be overdone. Once cooked, you’ll get a much milder flavor, not spicy.

Yes, I’m advocating adding salt and butter to cholesterol-laden meat. Look, this isn’t a daily meal, it’s a special treat! Don’t back out now. And no, margarine is not a good substitute.

If you prefer dry rubs, you can buy prepared mixtures, or make one of salt and pepper, a touch of cayenne, thyme, ground rosemary, garlic, and mild paprika (lots of it). For a marinade, try a teaspoon or so each of minced garlic and fresh minced ginger, in soy or teriyaki sauce. This needs no more than a couple hours to impart its flavors. This will yield a savory, Asian-inspired flavor. If you’re marinating to try and tenderize the meat, I’ll write another post on marinades in the future. However, the grade of meat you’re grilling for this recipe shouldn’t require tenderizing.

Some people also like to cut small slits at the edges of their steak to prevent curling during the cooking process, though I usually do not.

Cooking

Let’s talk about grilling in general: cooking the meat over high, direct heat. The idea, of course, is to sear the outside and form a crust or coating on the meat . This is done not to “seal” the meat as some people think, but for flavor. Everyone knows that the outside coating of grilled meat is the most flavorful. This is due to the “Maillard Reaction” which is what happens when the proteins and sugars are heated up. The combination “browns” and creates the flavor we are accustomed to in grilled, sautéed, or roasted meat. This is why meat is often browned before braising; otherwise, you just wind up with gray, boiled meat. Yummy.

This reaction, combined with the smoky flavors from the drippings sizzling in the fire, the direct flame scorching the meat, and the grill marks, yield a taste that is just incomparable to that given by any other method.

There is a drawback with this method: the heat itself. The high-quality meat you just paid good money for gets its tenderness from the “marbling” or streaks of fat throughout the meat, and a low collagen content (tougher fibers found in other cuts from parts of the animal that are more heavily exercised). The fat will essentially lubricate the fibers of the meat, making it tender, and provide moisture and flavor to the meat itself. Overcooking steak is easy to do. Cooking it through and melting out the fat fundamentally ruins the meat. At the same time, undercooked (rare) beef can also be tough, and unpalatable to many. You need to strike a fine balance between cooking it for flavor, and softening the fibers with heat, without driving out all the liquids.

The solution is to cook it as quickly as you can, while spending as little time over direct heat as possible so you don’t force out all the moisture. This is also the reason you must use a good cut of meat for grilling. Tougher cuts are better handled with braising.

To grill a steak on a gas grill, set all your burners to “incinerate” or whatever the highest setting is on yours. For charcoal grills, experience will tell you how much to use, but it should be enough to coat the entire surface with charcoal once the pile has burned down. You should be able to hold your hand over the grill for no more than a second or two. If your grill has a thermometer, it should be at or above 500.

Preheat until it’s as hot as possible. You’ll also need a watch or clock nearby; this method uses time very precisely.

Using tongs (not a fork – you don’t want to poke holes in the meat) lay your steaks on the grill at a 45-degree angle to the bars. Close the lid and wait exactly 2 minutes. Flip the steaks and cook for another 2 minutes, lid down. Then, pull the steaks and stack them onto a plate, and wait for 10 minutes.

Two things are happening while the meat is “resting.” First, the meat fibers which have contracted under the heat, begin to relax again, and reabsorb some of the juices. Second, the residual heat is gently cooking the meat, without melting out all the fat.

When the 10 minutes are up, return the steaks to the grill for another 2 minutes per side, laying them at 45-degree angles opposite however you had them earlier. This produces the diamond-shaped grill marks. If you move them around more than specified, you won’t get these.

Again, remove the steaks to a plate. They should be done! You can check after a few minutes by making an incision with a sharp knife to check the color. You don’t want to do this throughout cooking, only at the end, but don’t worry about defacing the meat – serve it to your guests with the cut side down if you wish. You can also check for doneness by squeezing with your tongs; a medium-rare steak should be firm, but not hard. Assuming you are happy with the doneness, let them rest for a few minutes before serving so the meat can draw the juices back in.

Some people put on a pat of butter to melt over the steak, or freshen the seasoning by sprinkling on more salt or pepper, but I do not.

You’ll find over time what works best for you in terms of time, your grill, and the cuts you usually buy. Heather is a fan of more cooked meat, so I may leave hers on the grill for an extra minute or two when cooking the second side, before pulling onto a place. I may add more time all around when grilling in the winter. The key is to try to follow a strict time regimen so that you’re able to adjust it precisely to learn from it.

Serving

The classic baked potato and side of green vegetables cannot be beat. We will sometimes do grilled potatoes: cut potatoes into halves lengthwise, coat with oil, season with salt, pepper, and rosemary, and leave these on the top rack of your grill for the duration. They will form a wonderful, flavorful crust. We also may serve white rice. The rice is molded in a cup or other container, turned out onto the plate, and a genuine aged soy sauce is then drizzled over it. Of course, a robust red wine is the perfect complement! I like a good, oaky Pinot or Tempranillo.

Do not put sauce on the steak. All that will do is drown the grilling flavors, seasoning, and delicate flavors of the meat itself. If you wanted someone to slather sauce all over your creation, you would have done BBQ, or just grilled a hamburger for them. Horseradish or mustard (English mustard, not the bright yellow stuff), crumbled bleu cheese, or sautéed peppers, onions, or mushrooms are all appropriate toppings.

That’s it! There’s nothing to do but enjoy, and review your process to see how you might improve it next time.

Now, you may still find that it’s not quite exactly like that perfect steak you had once at an uber-expensive steakhouse, which formed the experience you hold in your head as the Platonic form of what a steak should be. That’s to be expected. They have access to better tools, and higher grades of meat than you can buy in the grocery store. Additionally, they sometimes age their beef, or purchase it aged. The meat is hung, dry and unwrapped, under carefully controlled conditions for 10 days or longer. This causes the meat to intensify in flavor, and the natural enzymes within the meat help break it down and tenderize it. Don’t try this at home – there are recipes floating around the internet, but if you mess it up, you could make yourself very sick. However, if you buy an entire side of beef from a butcher, they may hang the carcass for you. It’s said that a side of beef will last a family of 4 for a year. I haven’t done this, but as soon as my boys get a little bigger (along with their appetites) I will try it…and you’ll learn about the experience here!

A Simple Hero Story

This story has been all over the web by now, but if you haven't read about it already, give it a click (it's short).

Some days, I wonder if there are decent people like this in the world any more...guess there are still a few! A shame about the woman, but it could have been much worse.

http://sfist.com/2007/11/28/truck_man_saves_1.php

Making Homemade Flour Tortillas

Tortillas! If you decided to read this post, you probably enjoy them too, and the myriad tasty creations made with them. But before we jump straight into bed with the subject, let's "romance" it for a bit first:

Tortillas (or close relatives) are a staple in some parts of Central and South America, and very familiar to us in the US. Although the corn tortilla is sometimes considered the "authentic" tortilla, and is more common, the wheat flour tortilla is native to northern regions of Mexico. I will give you a recipe for a wheat flour tortilla here.

Here's some tortilla history and facts, which I bring to you from the Tortilla Industry Association's website, and the June 2000 industry newsletter from Casa Herrera (food machinery manufacturer):

According to Mayan legend, tortillas were invented by a peasant for his hungry king in ancient times. The first tortillas, which date approximately 10,000 years before Christ, were made of native corn with dried kernel.

For centuries, the tortilla has been the food staple of the cultures of Mexico, and Central and South America. In those areas, corn is a principal crop which women would grind into a coarse meal by rubbing the kernels with a grinding stone, a metate. The corn tortilla was a practical one-handed meal for hard-working people who spent most of their days in the fields.

By the time the Spanish arrived in 1519, the Aztec and Latino peoples were producing corn tortillas in all shapes and sizes for everyday nourishment. Beginning in the 1700's, native populations moved northward and drove the Spanish invaders from Sonora State and what is now Texas, Arizona, and California. They brought the tortilla with them into an area which was short on corn but long on wheat flour and so the flour tortilla was born. This variation proved to be ideal as a leakproof wrapper due to an elastic ingredient, gluten, which allows flour tortillas to stretch and create even bigger food carriers. One expert referred to this tortilla as a "suitcase".

In succeeding years the tortilla became appreciated by local populations and western cowboys. Burritos ('little donkeys') appeared and followed the famous 1849 Gold Rush into California, becoming a widespread portable food of choice.

Fast-forward to the 21st century: in the year 2000, Americans consumed approximately 85 billion tortillas, not including tortilla chips. Tortillas are the fastest-growing segment of the baking industry, and now outsell all other ethnic and specialty breads in the US including bagels, croissants, english muffins, and pita bread.

According to a 2002 poll, conducted by Aspex Research for the TIA, the tortilla's popularity has reached record heights, cornering 32 percent of the sales for the U.S. Bread Industry, and trail white bread sales by only two percent - making them the second most popular bread type in America with sales that far surpass those of whole wheat bread, bagels and rolls. Over the past two years, annual growth for the tortilla industry has expanded nine percent, with 2002, U.S. tortilla industry sales reaching $5.2 billion.

Wow! Looks like they won't miss my $1.79 per package if I make my own...

Tortillas provide not only a fun and easy way to eat other foods, they are an excellent means of providing a carbohydrate "filler" to a meal, to extend the more expensive meats and vegetables and stretch a family's grocery dollars. You can read my complete thoughts on that subject here in the post Everyman's Thoughts on Stretching the Grocery Budget.

As an example for a family of four, rather than pulling 4 steaks from the freezer for dinner, you can make fajitas for the same family with only one or two steaks or even leftover meat, and some vegetables and other toppings. It's less expensive, and probably better for you.

Tortillas are not difficult or time-consuming to make - quite the opposite! A food made by moms for centuries can't be difficult to prepare. But still, you may ask why you would want to make them at all when you can get packaged tortillas from the store for a low cost and zero effort. A few reasons:

• They're fun to make, and the kids can help! Not only will they enjoy the process, but are more likely to eat something they had a hand in making
• It's much less expensive
  
• You don't need to have planned ahead and purchased them - they can be easily created when you find yourself with something on-hand to put in a wrap
• It's healthier, in that there are no preservatives or other unidentifiable substances listed in the ingredients on tortilla packages. You could also experiment with substituting some whole wheat flour, flax seed, or things like pureed spinach or sun-dried tomatoes to mirror the "gourmet" flavors seen in stores
  
• The same reason you might make your own pasta or bread, rather than eating white Wonder bread and store-brand pasta: it tastes better!
  

We usually serve fresh tortillas with standard Tex-Mex fare: meat, onions and peppers (cooked or raw), fresh tomato, lettuce, beans (black or refried), cheese, sometims rice, and various condiments like salsa, taco sauce, sour cream, hot sauce, or jalepenos. You can make large tortillas for burritos, mid-size ones for fajitas, or small ones for soft tacos.

"Wraps" in general are gaining in popularity over sandwiches for the low-carb dieting crowd, because they can have fewer carbs per serving than slices of bread. The possibilities for wraps are limited only by your imagination and sense of gustatory adventure. One I would like to try soon is a chicken ranch wrap: picture grilled chicken, fresh lettuce and tomatos, green onions, and a drizzle of ranch dressing in a fresh tortilla!

And finally, the recipe!

Dear reader, your boundless patience has been tested enough, let's move on to how to make these:

Here's the list of ingredients:

• 3 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
• Salt to taste (a 1/4 t.)
  
• 1/3 c. vegetable shortening or oil. Yes, Crisco is back in your kitchen! It's the ubiquitous blue tub we grew up with in our mother's cupboard, but have since eschewed for oils like olive and canola for health reasons. You could use ordinary vegetable oil if you wish. Hey, at least you're not using lard, which is the traditional ingredient.
• 1 c. warm water
• Optional: 1/4 t. baking powder. The recipe I started with used this, and I continue to, though other recipies omit this
  

And here's the instructions:

1. Cut the shortening into the dry goods with a pastry knife or fork. You should wind up with a "crumbly" mixture
2. Add the water slowly, stirring frequently, until you get a thick, slightly tacky dough. Experience will help more than measurements here, as the flour will take different amounts of water with varying levels of humidity. You want something that looks like...well...dough.
   
3. Knead for about 5 minutes, or until you get bored and tired of kneading. Get a mild upper-body workout while you prepare dinner!
   
4. Let the dough rest so it forms "gluten," the substance which makes it stay together and gives it elasticity. If you cooked it without kneading and resting, you'd probably get something like a flat biscuit. Recipies online vary from 15 minutes to 2 hours. Don't bother with watching the clock - just set the dough aside and prepare whatever you intend to fill them with, that will probably be sufficient time
5. Once the contents are nearly ready, put a cast-iron skillet onto medium heat, dry (no oil). If you don't have cast-iron, you can use a heavy-bottom skillet for now, and go get one later. It's an excellent investment. I have several, my first I've owned for over 10 years, and it keeps getting better with each use. There's also some cooking techniques that simply can't be done right with other skillet materials, like blackening.
   
6. Tear off a small ball of dough, pat into a circle, and on a floured surface, roll out your tortilla to whatever size you like. You do not need a cold surface like for pie dough; I use my plain laminate countertop. Roll it as thin as you possibly can! Taran (7 y/o son) is not tall or strong enough yet to do this, but will be soon. For now, I roll, and he cooks. Don't obsess over making a perfect circle; the ones you buy packaged are made with machines. It's homemade, and should look that way. If you make these often enough, you can buy a tortilla press to churn out tortillas more quickly and uniformly, though I've never used one (maybe Santa will bring me one)
   
7. Place tortilla on warm, dry skillet, and flip when halfway done. I'm not exactly sure how long this is, maybe 30 seconds per side. Again, experience will help. The dough will form bubbles from the heat. Using the tip your tongs, press any parts that curl or don't make good contact with the heat onto the skillet. At first, you'll lift up the edges to peek and check for doneness, but once you get the temperature set, you'll be able to tell from looking at the top of the tortilla whether or not it's done by the bubble formation. When flipped, the tops of the bubbles should have a brown (or even black) color from being cooked, but the tortilla should remain soft and pliable without being doughy.

You'll eventually develop a rhythm. I roll out the first tortilla and place it in the skillet. Taran monitors its progress, flips it, and then places it on a plate when it's done. By that time, I've rolled out the next one and it's ready to be cooked. And so on. That process keeps things moving along quickly. I think we can roll and cook a dozen in about 15 minutes or so.

I don't separate the tortillas in the stack, though some recipies call for sheets of waxed paper between each one. I've never had a problem with sticking. You could also use a traditional Indian technique for making the similar chapati, and brush the tops with ghee (clarified butter). They don't last long enough at the table to get cold, so I don't bother keeping them in a closed container, though I suppose you could if they were ready before the rest of the meal.

If you enjoy making these for "Mexican night" with your family, try making chapati the next time you have "Indian night". The ingredients are chapati flour (finely ground whole wheat durum flour), water, and sometimes salt or a little oil. Use roughly 1/3c. water for each cup of chapati flour. You'll find proportions on the flour package, and you'll find the flour itself in the ethnic section of a large grocery store, or if you have one nearby, an Indian foods store. They are then rolled out and cooked as for tortillas. You can also finish cooking them for a few seconds over direct flame, which makes them puff up like a balloon and become phulka instead, though I've never done it.
Rather than rolling or folding them around a portion of the meal as you would tortillas, you tear off a small bit of the bread and use it pick up or "scoop" a mouthful of food from your plate at a time. Yes, the kids have permission to eat with their hands for an evening!
The texture is a bit tougher and more chewey, a result of using whole-wheat flour and little or no oil. I understand you can make them softer by substituting milk or yogurt for the water. They're very filling.

Here's a picture of the proud tortilla chef, and his creations: