Supernatural 7x02 "Hello Cruel World"

Can I just say I am liking this season about 100 times more than last season already? Not that I didn't like last season, but it definitely did not make me go "What!" and flail in the second episode quite like this. Pretty good for a show in its seventh season, I must say.

So just what happened to garner such visceral reactions? Why I'm getting there, calm down!

We open right back where we left off last week, with the Leviathan taking over Castiel's body. Is Leviathan both the singular and plural way to say that? Grammar police? Cas' body isn't doing so well with the transition, so it decides not to expend the energy to kill Dean and Bobby at this time, and instead goes out into the nearby handy reservoir of drinking water to replenish its many selves. By this time, Dean and Bobby have found Sam, who is still seeing Lucifer, but doesn't embellish on it quite yet. Anyway, LeviaCas walks out into the reservoir and goes black-inky-sploosh, leaving behind nothing but his dear beat up trench coat, which Dean saves from the watery depths. Aw.

Back at the ranch, aka Singer Salvage, Dean awakens Sam from a 12-hour snoozefest and demands he tell him how he's actually doing. And this is a big step in the right direction for their relationship, because Sam actually tells him the truth rather than try to hide it. He's actually very grown up about the whole thing, despite that nagging Lucifer hallucination constantly nagging at him off to the side. Bobby wonders how all of this is weighing on Dean, what with Cas likely being dead and now Sam losing his marbles, and Dean classically tells him to stick a fork in it. Oh Dean, like you'd say anything else.

But there's not a lot of time for them to dwell on Sam's melon deterioration, because these Leviathan have already infiltrated some new people in Kansas and are, naturally, killing a bunch of people after taking their forms and memories. Dean goes to investigate said problem while Bobby continues researching, I guess, and Sam gets to sit around and argue with Lucifer and take apart his guns. It sounds like I'm making fun of the scenes between Sam and Lucifer, but I'm not. I love them. The way he's slowly starting to wonder what's real. Poor Sammy.

Meanwhile, over at Sioux Falls Hospital, Sheriff Jody Mills has recently had an appendectomy. She has an annoying bedside lady complaining constantly to her, but hey, that lady is not long for this world, because it turns out the Leviathan are also in Sioux Falls, and have taken over her doctor. The doctorviathan takes out annoying lady, only Jody sees it all. Having dealt with a zombie situation with Bobby in the past, she calls him up to come rescue her before she's the thing's next meal.

While Bobby goes to his damsel in distress, Sam is left to fend for himself. Not for too long, though, because Dean appears, having supposedly followed his Leviathan from Kansas back to South Dakota. You keeping track? They're all over the place, apparently. Anyway! Dean says he needs Sam as backup to take on these things, so they head off to... an office building? But hey, we know that they're at the hospital. And hey also! Dean is being a jerk to Sam! Well duh, it's not really Dean! It's HalluciDean (a great name because it also incorporates Luci-fer! Genius!). Only Sam has not figured this out yet, not until HalluciDean takes him into the place and reveals it's actually some sort of warehouse, and turns back into Lucifer.

At this point, Lucifer starts taunting Sam more, to the point where Sam tries to shoot him with one of those guns he was cleaning earlier. Lucifer points out that this is pointless, and the only way to really make him go away is to turn the gun on himself.

Meanwhile, Dean has actually returned back to Bobby's, only to find that Sam isn't there. Luckily, thinking something like this might happen earlier on, he turned the GPS on in Sam's phone. This is a thing you can do? News to me. Nonetheless, he tracks the GPS to the warehouse and finds Sam, who really doesn't know what to believe anymore. Dean manages to get through to him by pressing on that hand wound he still has going on, telling him that the pain here in the real world is different than the pain down there. And each time that the wound gets pressed, Lucifer kind of spazzes out of corporeal-ness. So, hey, this is kinda working, right? Sam keeps pressing on that sucker and listening to Dean telling him he needs to know that this is real and go from there, and Lucifer seems to go out of existence for good. For good? Psha.

While all of that is happening, Bobby has gone to investigate what happened to that annoying hospital lady from earlier. He finds her body in the morgue, all gross and stuff. And that's when Leviathandoctor shows up. Bobby tries to shoot him with some silver, but it doesn't do much good. He hightails it and calls up the boys to meet him back at his place.

But when Sam and Dean get there - the place is torched!!! Omg! No more Bobby's house?! That was sort of like their home! On top of which, there is no sign of Bobby either, only some Leviathan there to kill the Winchesters. They fight for a bit, but it's not much of a fight. Dean gets his leg broken, and Sam gets hit in the head with a golf club and goes down for the count. Luckily they managed to smash the Leviathan beneath a car so they have some time.

Dean manages to call 911. Wow! He called 911?! This must mean it's for real serious. Well, it is. Because he can't really walk, and Sam is still out. As they're being hauled away in the ambulance, Sam sees Lucifer again. Uh oh, he's not gone after all! Sam starts seizing, and things are only made worse when Dean hears the EMT say they're heading to none other than Sioux Falls Hospital. But that's where the Leviathan are! Oh no! We can't go there, Dean tries to get the EMT to see. But Mr. EMT is like sure buddy, let's take a nap, and gives him some drugs. Uh oh.

And then... the episode ends! AAH!

Random Thoughts:

- Did you catch the ad for Biggerson's pie bar? Just like a salad bar, but with pie! Damn, I'd like to see one of those in real life.

- Someone should keep a tally of how many freaky children-who-act-too-old this show has had now. And somehow it still never fails to be creepy.

- Just when I was thinking to myself, "Why wouldn't the hallucinations make him see Dean?" that's exactly what happened! Ha, I know TV too well.

- Dean's call to Bobby to let him know how he's really feeling. Which is that, if Bobby is dead, he'll take Sam and drive themselves off a cliff. Aww.

- Sam looked so freaked out in the warehouse. I thought Jared was doing a great job at that.

- Isn't there some saying that you're only going crazy if you don't think you're going crazy? Keep holding on, Sam! You can do it! Okay. He's a fictional character, get over it.

- Um, next week? Looks awesome. Pretty sure it's also the one that Jensen directed too.

Quotes:

"What am I? Chopped brains on toast?" - Bobby

HalluciDean: You could be seeing all kinds of crap, you don't know.
Sam: How is this helping?

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Homemade Fiber Bars

In today's world, sometimes it can be hard to eat enough fiber. Speaking as someone who cooks for one, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy fruit/veggie intake. They're expensive, they go bad quickly, I don't like going to the grocery store...

In an effort to increase my fiber, I tried those Fiber One bars. I don't know about the general population, but those bars most decidedly do not agree with my digestive system. So - why not make my own? Ones that don't have something called "chicory root extract."

If you really want more information on what that stuff does, just go do a quick google search. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Let's pretend this is an Instagram photo and not just me taking an out of focus one.

Before I go into the recipe, I want to give you some fiber advice. If you start upping your intake, you need to also up how much water you drink. Unless you already drink 8 glasses a day. And if you do, who the heck are you? That just seems like an epic amount of water intake to me. Though we must be reminded, not all water intake comes from just glasses of water. Okay, that makes me feel better.

Homemade Fiber Bars
Printable Recipe

3 cups bran cereal, like All Bran or Fiber One
2 cups quick cooking oats
1 1/2 cups wheat germ (or ground flax seed)
1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow fluff
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
4 ox (about 1/4 cup) white chocolate chips

Place marshmallow fluff and condensed milk in a microwavable bowl and microwave at 50% power for 3 minutes. Stir in the white chocolate chips and mix until melted and smooth.

Meanwhile, mix together dry ingredients. Pour the wet over the dry and mix until all moistened.

Press into a 15x13 cookie sheet lined with foil and sprayed with cooking spray (you really want to do the cooking spray).

With dampened hands (you really want to dampen your hands too), press down evenly across the pan. Allow about 30 minutes to firm up, and cut into 24 bars.

Store in an airtight container.

(via From Apples to Zucchini)

In photos:

Marshmallow fluff on top of condensed milk.

Dry ingredients. I used ground flax seed instead of wheat germ because I happen to have a lot of it. I suspect the wheat germ would've made for a more robust bar than the flax seed, since the flax is finer.

Fluff and milk all mixed together.

And mixing the dry and the wet together, you get this sticky stuff.

Press it into the pan. It's sticky. The damp hands help not get it just on your hands.

A couple finished bars.

I will say that I would probably try these with the wheat germ in future. Flax seeds have a specific, and kind of overpowering, taste to them. While it's not necessarily bad, and perhaps you are a fan of the taste of flax seeds, for me... meh. I don't mind when they are baked into things and you can't really taste them, but otherwise I have a hard time.

I'd say that these would also be good if you added some dried fruit or regular chocolate chips, because they can be a little plain. But if you're just looking for some fiber bars without a lot of hoopla, these fit the bill.

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Supernatural 7x01 "Meet the New Boss"

And we're back! With a bang? Things moved at a quick pace in this premiere, one minute Cas has ingested the souls, the next he's smiting and Dean's all "there is no more Cas!" and then... okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's get back to the part where he ingested the souls, because that's right where we left off from last season's finale.

And right where Cas declares himself the new GAHHG (in case you don't remember, that stands for "Great Almighty He Him God" and has the bonus effect of sounding like you're gagging!), and demands Dean, Sam and Bobby bow down to him. Bobby gets right to it, sensing Cas has gone cuckoo off the reservation. Sam and Dean are about to follow suit, but Cas can sense they don't really mean it, and instead gives them this one warning. He'll let them go for now, but they should hope never to see him again.

Cas then decides it's time for some almighty smiting, of angels, of other people, basically anyone he thinks is doing something worth smiting. Which is often those who don't want to side with him, so he's being rather petty about the whole deal, really. Of course, when one is drunk on power from corrupted souls, it's probably hard to keep a level head.

Back at the ranch, or Singer Salvage, Dean has taken to trying to fix his one true love. Oh wait, that's Sam. But no, he's trying to fix the Impala, which has been put through the ringer again. Although I suppose he would also like to fix Sam, who has started having some troubles with the Hell visions seeping into everyday life. He's doing a good job of hiding it from the others so far, but we all know that won't last long. During this time, Dean has taken the stance that they should just leave well enough alone, not go poking the bear, you know. But once Cas starts getting a little too overzealous in his smiting, they decide, uh, maybe we should do something about this after all. Only where to look?

To everyone's favorite former, and newly reinstated, King of Hell - Crowley! Who else! You see, earlier on, Cas found Crowley and offered him a deal - to become the King of Hell again. After all, someone has to make sure Lucifer and Michael don't escape the cage. Crowley, ever one of self interest, agrees. But when the Winchesters and Bobby come looking to conspire, he's right ready to join up with them too. Like I said, self interest. They basically come to the conclusion that the way to rein in Cas is to get Death to kill him. And the only way they can get Death to agree to that is to bind him like Lucifer did.

They manage to succeed in the whole binding thing, after breaking into some poor couple's home and using a special lightning sand thingy for the ritual. Death, of course, is less than pleased to see they've let it get to this point at all. After all, he warned Dean many moons ago about the whole soul business. Before they can get any deal in place, however, Cas pops in to have a tete-a-tete with Death about, basically, who has the bigger balls. Dean encourages Death to kill Cas, but Cas breaks the bind on him before he can. And promptly disappears. Death warns them that they've got to get the souls back out of Cas and into purgatory, because it's not just souls that are inside him. There are some older beastly beings that GAHHG had made long ago - Leviathans. And they are itching to wreak some new havoc. He gives them a deadline to re-do the ritual at that lab place.

But they've still got to convince Cas. Dean thinks he is beyond convincing, and would rather sit back and watch some Asian cartoon porn with a drink in hand. Sam, however, believes that Cas is still in there somewhere, and takes it upon himself to try to talk to him (via the sky!). Cas, after going nutso and kiling a bunch of people and otherwise realizing he's no longer in control, comes to his senses and goes to them, asking for help.

As they prepare to re-open the gate, Cas tries to make amends with Dean. In case we forgot, he had promised to fix Sam once he had stopped the war in Heaven with this whole Purgatory plan. But now things have gone haywire and he hasn't been able to do it, and won't be able to do it either. Which is not great, because at this very moment Sam has been sent off to retrieve some special blood from another room in the lab, and starts having another hallucination. This time it's Lucifer, who's trying to convince him that this is all a new form of torture - make him think he's back in the real world, then pull out the rug from under him. Ah man, if ever there was a way to make someone question what's real... poor Sam!

Sam, seemingly lost in this hallucination, doesn't get to witness Cas relinquishing the souls back into purgatory. Post-relinquish, it appears he is dead, and Dean finally starts showing a little remorse over the situation. But then, boom, he heals and sits up. Is all well? Has he returned to normal? It seems so at first, until! No, not all is well. Something didn't go back into purgatory with the rest. And you can probably guess what it is since it got name checked earlier - Leviathan(s?)! It quickly takes control of Cas with a gleeful smirk, tossing Dean and Bobby aside like toys.

Dun dun dun!

Random Thoughts:

- Apparently, the writers spell Cas like Cass. This is a bit of a mind boggle to me, since Castiel only has one s. My name has two n's in the full version, and I still think it's weird when people do the shortened version as Jenn instead of Jen. So the double s scenario is a bit of a head scratcher. I digress. This is not important.

- Seeing Misha do demented is kind of awesome. I laughed out loud at that face he made when the leviathan(s?) took over. Laughed in a good way, of course.

- Sammy! Also, Jared was looking really good, right? I mean. Ahem. But, yes. Poor Sam! Next week's episode looks pretty awesome. I wonder how much it will actually focus on the Hell memories, because the promos made it seem like that's all it would be about, but you know how those promos can be!

- What do you think of the new opening titles? I dig them, personally. I like them better than the glass shatter of last season. My favorite still has to be the blood splat of season five, though. That was awesomesauce.

- Can you believe this is season seven?! I remember back in season one when it was possible the show wouldn't be picked up. How far we've come.

Quotes:

"What a brave little ant you are." - Castiel

"I'm not dumb. I'm not gonna get my hopes up just to get kicked in the daddy pills again." - Dean

Dean: Excuse me, you got any Grey Poupon?
Sam: Grey Poupon? Seriously?
Dean: It's what popped in my head.

"Should we kickbox now?" - Death

"Hey, Sam. Long time no spooning." - Lucifer

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Chewy Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies

Can I tell you something about these cookies?

They are absolutely my new favorite chocolate chip cookies. Seriously. If you like chocolate chip cookies, go make these. Right now.

They are incredibly soft and chewy, which is an immediate chocolate chip cookie win in my book. The only negative thing I have to say about them is that they are rather flat. But get over it. You will want to stuff your face with them.

That is, if you have any good taste at all. Come on.

What makes them so great, you wonder? This little bit of molasses instead of brown sugar, I think. It's only slightly different than your regular go to recipe, but what a difference!

Chewy Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons bread flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoons dark molasses (not blackstrap)
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 1/2 teaspons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (can I recommend that you do this once you stick the cookies in the fridge for a bit? That way you don't have your oven on unnecessarily long!)
2. Melt butter. Options: do it in a saucepan. OR you can just melt it in the microwave if you're lazy like me.
3. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda and set aside. Note, I rarely actually do this. I just put it all in at the end. They turn out just fine.
4. Mix together your sugar and your molasses until there are no large chunks of molasses remaining. You can do this in a separate bowl by hand, or just stick it in your mixer and let it go to town. Since I am lazy, I stick it in my mixer.
5. Mix the butter in with the sugar and cream on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Add in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour stuff until it all looks like some doughy deliciousness. Fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Chill the dough for about 20 minutes (or more, it's always okay to do it for longer). Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Full disclosure: I didn't go parchment after the first batch, it was okay, though they were harder to get off the sheet. If you want, you can fleck with some sea salt before you stick them in the oven.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown. These are best slightly underdone. Of course, that's how I like all of my cookies! Cool completely and store in an airtight container.
8. Try not to devour all of them at once. Just try.

Recipe via Joy the Baker

In photos:

 Flour and other sundries sifted together.

Sugar and molasses. Brown sugar! Amazing!

Melting some butter.

Butter and sugar/molasses mixed together. It's looking pretty caramel-y.

Add in the eggs and vanilla.

And then the flour mixture. What is with this photo? Sigh.

After you've got the chocolate chips mixed in, you better be refrigerating this. For real. Do it.

 Since these are slightly darker than your normal chocolate chip cookie recipe, don't leave them in overly long waiting for that slightly browned look. You don't want them to get crunchy. I forgot to use parchment paper, and it was fine, but I do recommend it, otherwise you'll need to leave them on there for a bit to firm up.

Mmm mmm good. As in, goooooooood.

Supernatural: Best Sex Scenes (Seasons 1-6)

Oh me, oh my! That's right, I'm keepin' it classy for my final ranking list of the summer before season seven starts. But I know you all have dirty minds anyway!

Despite Supernatural featuring two hot male stars in Mr. Padalecki and Mr. Ackles, there really haven't been that many sex scenes in the six seasons the show has been on the air. I'm sure they, and their wives, appreciate it. The viewers? Have to take what they can get. So let's just get straight down to it. The top five (and only?) sex scenes... oh la la

The titles are links to youtube videos. Because you know you want to watch these again.

Sam and Ruby

(4x09 "I Know What You Did Last Summer")

This was just all kinds of wrong, we can agree. She's a demon! And manipulating him. Plus he's grieving and clearly still pretty drunk. Not that they aren't pretty, though. They are certainly pretty. And we could see it coming. It didn't make it any less wrong, however. And in this case, it's not really a case of so wrong it's right.

Dean and Cassie

(1x13 "Route 666")

It's...just...so... dark! Dang. We can hardly see what's happening. There's a... back. Some... kissing? Damn you, lighting! Anyway. This is Dean's first sex scene, and, at this point unexpectedly, it is rather tender. You'd think Dean would be the less emotionally invested guy out of the brothers, but it has turned out not to be the case. He just... feels... so... much!

Sam and Madison

 (2x17 "Heart")

Aw, Sam's first sex scene. And wow is it one. The first time we see his sex style. Which is, you know, um... passionate. Maybe a little... rough? Hey, when you're having sexy times with a werewolf, that's probably not a bad thing. Except when you eventually have to kill her. Whoops.

Dean and Anna

(4x10 "Heaven and Hell")

Why did they have to go and ruin this scene with the hand on the steamy car window? After Titanic, you just can't do that anymore without it being ultra cheesy. But other than that, this was one of the most sensual sex scenes on the show.

Sam and Hot Doctor Lady

(4x14 "Sex and Violence")

Whereas many of Sam's sex scenes are all about all-consuming passion taking over, this one was all about the slow build. It felt more grown up and natural than his other ones, really. The only thing wrong with it is that it ends entirely too soon!

Interesting observation: three out of these five scenes are from season four! Do you think we'll have any more in season seven? Somehow it seems unlikely. So what's your favorite scene?

For my other top ten lists: go here!

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Red Velvet Cupcakes

You know what's funny? This is the first time I'm posting a cupcake recipe! That seems crazy. But it turns out I've just made muffins up until this point. Weird.

But the time has come! I was up home in Portland this past week and was put in charge of making "some kind of cake or dessert" for a family/birthday get together thing. Having never made red velvet anything before, it seemed the perfect opportunity!

Because everyone loves red velvet. It's sort of a thing right now, you know? Not too chocolately, but not totally vanilla. A crowd pleaser, it is.

But can I tell you something about how frosting these things went? My mom and I, it turns out, have never used a frosting bag with the tip thing before. Attempts to make swirly big poofy tops with it went, let's just say, less than great. We'll blame it on the tip size being too small. Because that's just better than blaming it on ourselves, right?

So the cupcakes you are seeing here are the ones we just did with a frosting knife. I could've shown you how the others turned out, but... it's kind of embarrassing. Right, Mom?

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 ounces red food coloring

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.
3. Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together with another wire whisk.
4. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.
5. Pour into prepared muffin pans. Should make two dozen.
6. Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes until you stick a skewer in the center and it comes out clean. Let sit for ten minutes and remove to a cooling rack to cool completely before you get to the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 8 ounces cream cheese, cold
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 2/3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Cooking Directions

1. Beat the powdered sugar and butter together in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-slow speed until it comes together and is well mixed.
2. Add the cream cheese all at once and beat on medium to medium-high until incorporated.
3. Turn the mixer to medium-high and beat for 5 minutes, or until the frosting becomes light and fluffy. Do not over-beat as the frosting can quickly become runny.

In photos:

 Liquids before the food coloring.

And after! Oh my! How red! But I will have you know, I didn't use the whole amount of food coloring the recipe calls for. We didn't have enough!

The dry ingredients all whisked together.

Wet added into the dry. Yours would be redder if you had the right amount of food coloring, keep in mind!

 Into the muffin pans!

And out of the oven. You see, not so red now. But it's okay, they get covered with frosting anyway.

The powdered sugar and butter mixed up. Secret: I forgot to sift the powdered sugar! Whoops!

Frosting! This is only half of it. I wasn't sure I was going to need the whole amount, then it turned out I did, so we ended up with twice as much as in this photo.

Such a patriotic little cupcake.

Top shot.

Who can resist a red velvet cupcake anyway? Only crazy people.