Funny things, cute things and delicious things

[ileliberte]

Supernatural made me happy. But you know what made me much much happier? Watching videos of McCain and Obama at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial dinner. It was funny, and it obviously wasn't free of any political mocking, but man, I can take this kind of mutual criticism any day, it was sharp and it didn't make me feel like politics sometimes does, i.e. turn off my computer and go to bed forever. Both were hilarious, McCain was very smooth and pretty straight-faced with his delivery, but Obama grinning at some of his own jokes was kind of great too. And I love that they poked fun at each other as well as themselves, and ended with words of admiration for each other, because they should. I also liked Obama's words of appreciation for Hilary and how much fun she seemed to be having.

Here's McCain: Part 1 Part 2
Here's Obama: Part 1 Part 2
(thanks to miss_porcupine for the heads up)

Link of amazing grandeur: Pictures of the sun. Seriously, wow.

Random link of absolute cuteness: The subtitle on my lj (grabbed from toomuchplor's fic Constellation) really truly holds true for this because awwww, it's a chimpanzee cuddling baby tigers! My heart melted like butter on a hot plate.

I made basil chicken last night and it's definitely something I will be repeating again. It was really easy, the main ingredients you need are (obviously) chicken and basil along with garlic, some fish sauce and a bit of chili paste. vegetables are variable.

I made it for myself for just one meal and though I didn't measure exactly, what I used was roughly:

One medium chicken thigh part, diced
3/4th loosely packed cup of dry thai basil leaves (I think plan basil will work just as fine) copped slightly
1/2 small onion
1/2 medium orange bell pepper
2 medium sections of garlic, chopped fine
2 slivers of ginger, chopped fine
1 stalk of spring onion chopped up fine
1 small crown of broccoli sliced lengthwise
a handful of baby corn, quartered and sliced
1 teaspoon of fish sauce
3/4th teaspoon of chili paste (or you can just use sliced green chilis according to taste)
Salt
Canola oil (I've also seen recipes using peanut oil, plain vegetable oil etc.)

• Heat the oil and cook the garlic, ginger and onions for one or two minutes or until slightly browned.
• Add the spring onion and the bell pepper, cook for a while and add the broccoli and baby corn. Add salt to taste.
• When the vegetables have been stirred around for a bit, add the chicken and brown.
• After the chicken has browned up a little, add the chili paste, fish sauce and finally, the basil leaves.
• I wanted some gravy, so I added water in small amounts once everything seemed to be cooked at least partially. Adding it in lower doses helps it to get incorporated in the preparation better instead of just becoming a blandish lake for the food to float in, and adding it after the main ingredients have cooked makes sure that they have been stir-fried some and won't just be boiled in all the water.
• Taste to see if it's done.

When done, you can make it pretty with a few slivers of basil or coriander in your serving plate, or you can just be starving like me and shove it all into a bowl on top of freshly made rice and proceed to gulp it down.