The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 1 "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be"

The Walking Dead has returned and the first episode has hit me round the head like swift strike from Lucille. After the end of season 6 we all knew that someones time was up but the way in which Negan dispatched both Abraham and Glen was truly shocking. Knowing what I knew from the comics I was expecting Glen's demise so when Lucille fell onto Abrahams crown I was taken by surprise. I was gutted as Abraham has been one of my favourite characters of the last few seasons but even in death he managed to get in one last brilliant line before he left us forever. With Abraham gone I thought Glen had been given a reprieve but you know a villain like Negan won't stand for any crap so when Darryl clocked him in the jaw you just knew there would be repercussions and with Glen kneeling behind Negan I could just tell what was coming. Glen's death is heartbreaking not just to Maggie and the rest of the group but also to us as a viewer after we thought he had bought it in the last series only to have miraculously survived and now for him to be cut down so early it's hard to take.

The grotesqueness of these gruesome deaths were hard to watch (Mrs Cool watched most of this episode with her hands in front of her eyes) but the tension later in the episode with Negan breaking Rick spirit was unbearable and genuinely stomach churning, Sam said she felt physically sick as Negan forced Rick to cut off his sons arm. With the group seemingly under Negan's control now it is going to be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out. However, after watching since the start I haven't lost faith in Rick and I'm sure they will be formulating a plan to free themselves from Negan's control, but it's not going to be easy.

There's an old saying "death smiles at us all", Negan smiles a lot.


Well, that's all for now.

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Twitter here.

Monday Munchies: Blueberry American Pancakes with Streaky Bacon and Golden Syrup

Pancakes, yum! Blueberries, yum! Golden Syrup, yum! Bacon, YUM!!!

Hands up who loves pancakes? Also, whoever thought of having bacon with them is a genius. This is a bit of an unhealthy breakfast but so worth it. To make this recipe you will need the following:

Ingredients

200g of self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 knob of butter
300ml milk
blueberries
streaky bacon
golden syrup

The Method

These are so easy to make, beat the egg and mix with the milk, add to the flour and baking powder and whisk into a batter. Next melt the butter and fold this into the batter mix along with half the blueberries.

Heat two wide based pans on a medium/high heat with some oil, in one fry the streaky bacon until crispy.

Use a ladle full of batter to make each pancake and cook three at a time in the 2nd pan, cook for 3-4 minutes depending on how much colour you want.

To assemble your dish just stack the pancakes with bacon and golden syrup on each layer and then scatter some blueberries around the plate.

What do you like with your pancakes? Let me know what you think of mine.

Well, that's all for now.

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Instagram here.

Project Bond: You Only Live Twice

"The Things I Do for England"

We're heading into the realms of parody fodder with You Only Live Twice. The obvious one being the parallels with Austin Powers and especially Blofeld and Dr Evil. You Only Live Twice was Sean Connery's 5th Bond film in five years and you can tell from his performance in the film that he was no longer happy making Bond movies and he was really just going through the motions.

The film starts with a US spaceship doing some routine mission in orbit when another mysterious spaceship approaches before the capsule opens and engulfs the US ship. The US think the Russians are to blame (it's was always the Russians to blame in the cold war). When we first see Bond he is in Hong Kong bedding a Chinese bird (obviously) but then she springs a trap and Bond is seemingly shot to death. Bond is buried at sea (he is a Commander in the Royal Navy after all) but it then turns out that he is not dead and he faked his death to get some of his enemies to stop looking for him.

Bond is sent to Japan to investigate as this is where the British think the mystery Spaceship landed back on Earth. While Bond is Investigating a shady company he is captured by a woman we find out later is Number 11 in SPECTRE. The next sequence of events for me make absolutely no sense at all. While Bond is being interrogated by Number 11 she slaps him around a little and then without much prompting from Bond suddenly succumbs to his charms and they start making out, I know bond is a ladies man but this is just ridiculous. She then frees him and they end up in bed together. After they do the do they make plans to escape together and fly back to Europe, then when they are on the plane Number 11 traps Bond again and parachutes out of the plane leaving Bond to die. This all seems entirely unnecessary as if she wanted him dead she could have just done it when he was tied to the chair at the start.

Anyway back to the film, after Bond escapes the plane he meets up with Q and gets a mini gyrocopter laden with all manner of Q Branch upgrades. Bond takes "Little Nellie" for a spin around the island he is checking out and soon an ariel battle ensure as Bond is circling an extinct volcano.

Soon after a Russian spaceship is taken by the same mystery spaceship and this time we see that SPECTRE is behind it. we see Number 1 stroking his white Persian Cat, he is not happy with Number 11 as she let Bond escape and dispatches her by setting off a trapdoor on a bridge over a pool of Piranha.

Bond is told he will be trained as a ninja, because why not, and for some reason needs to wear prosthetics to look Japanese. While Bond is sleeping an assassin tries to poison him but the woman he's been knobbing gets it instead. We now find out Bond is disguised so he can sneak onto the island SPECTRE is working from. As Bond is snooping around he finds that SPECTRE is based in a frickin' secret lair in a frickin' hollowed out volcano. Bond infiltrates the base but is spotted by Number one who finally introduces himself as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the scar-faced, bald headed, Nehru jacket wearing head of SPECTRE played by Donald Pleasance. We are told that SPECTRE wants USA and Russia to go to war so SPECTRE can rise up and take over the world.

Blofeld proceeds with their plan to steal another US spaceship but the ninja's Bond has been training with arrive and Bond escapes and manages to blow up SPECTRE's spaceship but Blofeld escapes and sets off a self destruct mechanism in the volcano (because all secret lairs need a self destruct mechanism).

The is not a good bond film it's only saving grace is Donald Pleasance as Blofeld and he is only fleetingly in it for the last few minutes. You can tell from the finished film that it was a strained production with Connery and producer Cubby Broccoli having a massive falling out during the making of the film. If it weren't for the poor box office returns of the next film then this would probably have been Connery's last outing as Bond.

Project Bond will be back On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Well, that's all for now.

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Facebook here. 

Monday Munchies: Sushi

I love sushi. Either as a light lunch or a healthy snack it's great. We recently stoked up on sushi stuff and if you make your own you can customise it to have whatever ingredients you like best so it's not all raw fish. Also if you have kids they will love coming up with their own recipes and then making it themselves.

We decided to make 3 different kinds Red Pepper Maki, King Prawn Nigiri and King Prawn Uramaki. To make these you will need the following ingredients:

Sushi Rice
Nori (seaweed sheets)
Toasted Sesame Seeds
Red Pepper King Prawns

The rice will take the most prep but it is relatively easy if you follow the instructions on the packet.

Red Pepper Maki

Maki is the most popular type of sushi with the nori on the outside of the rice and, in our case, the red pepper in the middle. Start by putting the nori on the bamboo rolling mat and then spread some sushi rice over the nori and then add some sliced red pepper at one end. Once done it's time to roll up the sushi.

King Prawn Nigiri

Nigiri is really easy to make you just mould the rice into shape (you can also buy a mould to make the shape you will see in restaurants). Once it's moulded you just need to put whatever ingredient you want on top, in our case a King Prawn.

King Prawn Uramaki

Uramaki is like an inside out Maki. You start my spreading the rice on the bamboo sushi rolling mat then add the ingredients. Once its been rolled you can decorate it by rolling it in some toasted sesame seeds.

Once done you can serve your sushi with soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi. Have you ever made your own sushi? What do you like in yours?

Well, that's all for now.

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Instagram here.

Monday Munchies: Pesto crusted Sea Bass with Roasted New Potatoes

I was bored recently and had some left overs in the fridge so decided to make some pesto with a twist. I dusted off my food processor (which I should use more often for sauces and pastes) and made a rocket pesto with rocket, pine nuts, garlic, cheddar cheese and rapeseed oil. Pesto is really easy to make as you just put all of the dry ingredients into the food processor and once it's all chopped up start adding the oil slowly until it combines into pesto.

Now that I had some delicious home made pesto I needed something to do with it. So I asked on Twitter and Facebook (you can follow me here and here) what you be a good pesto recipe as I usually have pesto with pasta, chicken and mangetout (which is amazing by the way) but I wanted to try something different.

The dish I decided on was this, Pesto crusted Sea Bass with Roast New Potatoes and Asparagus wrapped in Parma ham.

Ingredients:

This recipe will serve 2 and you will need:

Pesto
Breadcrumbs
2 Sea Bass Fillets
New Potatoes
1 pack of asparagus spears
1 pack of Parma ham

Method:

Add the Pesto to the breadcrumbs and mix it with your fingers until it is combines in bready pesto-y goodness.

Divide this in two and and put it on the flesh side of the sea bass fillets. Put the fillets on a plate and leave in the fridge while you do the potatoes.

Chop the new potatoes in half and boil them in a pan for 5 minutes. Next grease a roasting tin and add the boiled potatoes. using a masher, lightly mash the potatoes so they are just slightly crushed and put them in an oven at 200ºc for around 25 minutes or until the edges are starting to brown.

Next take the sea bass out of the fridge and fry it skin side down in a hot pan until the skin goes crispy. Then transfer the fillets to a baking tray (or leave them in the pan if your pan is oven proof) and put them in the oven with the potatoes for the last 10 minutes.

Whilst the fish and potatoes are in the oven you can wrap the asparagus spears in the parma ham and then cook them in a hot griddle pan.

The asparagus should only take a few minutes on each side and then everything will be ready to serve.

Well, that's all for now

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Instagram here.

Cocktail of the month: Halloween Special

Cocktail of the month is back and as it's October we've decided to have Halloween themed cocktails. We recently had some friends round our house for an early Halloween party and these are the drinks we served.

Toffee Apple

Ingredients:

Salted Caramel Vodka
Cloudy Apple Juice

The first cocktail was the easiest to make as only has 2 ingredients. The Vodka is so nice and doesn't taste alcoholic at all and when mixed with the Apple Juice it tastes just like a toffee apple. I mixed 50ml of Vodka with 150ml of Apple juice and served this is a Martini Glass. The glass was decorated with Halloween coloured sprinkles.


Zombie

Ingredients:

White Rum (Bacardi)
Dark Rum (Kraken)
Gold Rum (Havana Club)
Mango and Papaya Juice (You might need to visit a few shops before you find this)

Now this is the cocktail everyone was talking about at the party. I think the only reason it is called a Zombie is because once you've finished one you feel like a zombie. This is a very Caribbean cocktail with 3 types of Rum (White, Dark and Gold), mixed with Mango and Papaya Juice. To make this this you need 12.5ml (half a 25ml measure) of White Rum, 25ml of Dark Rum and 37.5ml (1 and 1/2 of a 25ml measure) of Gold Rum then top it up with 200ml if Mango and Papaya juice and serve in a Highball Glass with ice.

Now head over to Life as Mrs R for the details of the canapés we served.

Now, that's all for now.

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Instagram here. 

Westworld: Season 1 Episode 1 The Original

Westworld is a new Sci-Fi/Western based on the 1973 movie of the same name. The premise is the same, a futuristic theme park where guests play cowboys in a simulated wild west and where all the inhabitants are played by life like androids called hosts but the tone of this series is a lot darker that the original film.

The show starts with Delores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), a young woman who lives on farm with her parents, also Teddy (James Marsden) who we find has a romantic history with Delores. After they meet and spend the day together they head back to Delores' farm where they find a gunfight has taken place and Delores father has been killed. After Teddy kills the bandits a man in black appears (played by Ed Harris) and we find that Delores and Teddy are both hosts and host are incapable of hurting real people (the man in black is real). In a sinister turn the man in black kills Teddy and drags Delores off to a barn and you realise how truly dark this series is going to be.

Next we meet Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) who is head of programming at Westworld who is working on a host who has had a recent software update. He then follows a security team as they go to the basement where all of the decommissioned hosts are kept and he find the founder of Westworld Dr Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) who is talking to an old host and after a conversation with Bernard seems distant and uninterested in the way Westworld is headed.

Back in Westworld one of the hosts malfunctions in what looks like they're having a stroke and after some investigation it turns out the recent update has caused the problem. After a few more hosts malfunction they people in charge of Westworld have to recall the the affected hosts so they decide to have one of the bad guy hosts stage a robbery at the saloon. As the updated hosts are interrogated there is a unnerving creepiness as unintended personalities emerge from older programming. The affected hosts are decommissioned and sent to a holding room with other previously decommissioned units in a truly haunting scene.

On a side note, the soundtrack was also amazing with western styled versions of Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden and Paint it Black By The Rolling Stones and the show ends with Ain't No Grave by Johnny Cash.

Here is the trailer for episode 2 'Chestnut'.

Well, that's all for now.

S

You can follow Big Stevie Cool on Twitter here.