Valerie's Variety Podcast

Two minute Tuesday TMTs Segment I'm featuring my favourite body scrub - a quick and dirty cheap body scrub.

Today I'm sharing my ReView of Brekkie Cafe, located at 120 120 Westpark Way SW. Brekkie Cafe boasts - A Glorious Break in Your Day! It's a beautiful Cafe high ceilings, lots of windows and light. The food is fresh, wholesome and beautifully displayed on the plates.

episode 53 season 1

Who doesn't like fresh bread and butter, yummy!

Today I'm going to share my bread recipe. This is what I like about my 'variety' show, it allows me the platform to share stories about WhatEver-WhenEver and provides you with randomness of information.

Welcome back to Valerie’s Variety Podcast with your host me, Valerie Moss this show is about ReViews, InterViews and my Daily Views. It’s a story podcast about my life in Calgary, WhatEVER | WhenEVER. The show drops every Tuesday.

Follow me on Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook

Instagram @ValerieJMoss

Pinterest @VJMoss

Facebook @ValeriesVarietyPod

5 years ago Subway made headlines, not for their great tasting sandwiches, not for their over 33,000 locations beating McDonalds by over 1000 but for the chemical used in their bread. Their staple ingredient, the mere platform that everything at Subway relies and lies upon - their bread. This bread contains very bad ingredients. Referring to this ingredient by the tag-name of "yoga-mat". The chemical name is azodicarbonamide or ADA which btw is contained in over 500 recipes and not just bread. In the plastics industry ADA is the chemical foaming agent. It is mixed into polymer plastic gel to generate tiny gas bubbles, something like champagne for plastics. The results are materials that are strong, light, spongy and malleable - like a yoga-mat.

This got me thinking, I did some research on a loaf of bread in any grocery store and I was pretty educated on the amount of chemicals in the everyday bread we buy in a grocery store and most of them contained azodibarbonamide - not just Subway!

So, I decided right then and there that I would start making my own bread. Jeff was on board. Who doesn't like a fresh loaf of bread smelling good and tasting even better. We even have a song 'jam bun jam bun' and it goes to the jingle of old Cops shows. bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do...I digress.

Bread Machine

We purchased a bread machine as I knew better then to try and time rising. This bread machine isn't anything fancy, it's the Cuisinart Bread Machine. You can purchase it on Amazon for about $160 and if you're a prime member shipping is free. I bought ours about 5 years ago at Home Outfitters - for $200 but according to their website all stores are closing and they have huge sales so you might be able to pick one up from there for a good price.

Since I've had this bread maker I've made 2 loaves a bread a week, sometimes more but this is pretty typical. That’s over 520 loaves of break with this same machine.

You must put the ingredients into the bread maker or your mixing bowl in this order and this recipe is for a medium size of loaf. I found this to be the best size for the bread machine.

French Bread Ingredients - Standard White

Water, Table Salt, Bread Flour, Measuring Cups & Spoons, Amaranth Flour (maybe)

(x1) Cup, (x1)TBsp of water - room temp (I actually use the water from the Keurig holding tank)(x3) 1/4 teaspoons white table salt(x2) Cups, (x1) 1/3 Cup, (x1) TBsp of Bread Flour - I use bread flour as it's seems to rise the best and taste the best. You can use all purpose but it's not as good, in this picture on my site I'm showing a small bag of Amaranth flour, I will sometimes add a Tbsp of this within the cup measurement of the bread flour just adds a different element.make a well in the flour to add your yeast(x2) Teaspoons of Dry Active Yeast

Then set your Cuisinart bread machine to menu 5 - French Bread, and in 3:15mins you'll have warm hot-made bread.

ReView of the Cuisinart Bread Machine

Since I've had this bread machine for so long I love it, it does what it needs to do and is very reliable. It's noisy as it mixes away, beeps to add ingredients and to take the paddle out. It's looks good on the counter and it has these great rubber feet that secure it while it does it's mixing. It has 15 menu options, you can even make jams.

Taking the paddle out is such a nice treat if you can get to it. I usually make the bread when I'm away from the house or overnight as it's noisy so I can't take the paddle out. Leaving this metal flipper inside the bread when the bread is done baking, while removing the bread the paddle keeps a chunk of the bread so there's a slight hole in the middle - doesn't change the flavour.

We also use a bread box to store our newly fresh, cooled loaf in. Did you know you're not supposed to store bread in the fridge? This makes the bread dry out and stale faster. It's best to store bread in room temperature. So I found this box, it's a teal tin bread box on Amazon for about $35. as it's the perfect size for the exact loaves I make. When purchasing a bread box for your bread be cognizant of the size, they typically come very large-long and shallow, it's weird. So just a heads up.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. Bread is a girls best friend, we eat it as a comfort food, men like big manly sandwiches - who doesn't really. Bread some in so many shapes and sizes, with so many ingredients. But as a daily staple in my house anyway, we love our simple 4 ingredient bread recipe, we know there's no 'yoga-mat' chemical in it and it's pretty wholesome, yes we could argue and get into the gluten factor and the processing of the flour however...lets stick with this fresh white bread slathered in true organic salted butter.

My auntie Cher told a story about her gramma making loafs and loafs of bread - likely because they had so many kids...she had these giant arms (like the hugest 'hi helens') and she's snap those loaves into this brisk twist and put them onto the large butchers block French country table for rising. Auntie said that you didn't get near her gramma's arms while she was making bread or you might have a 'cuff' upside the body by getting into her work space, such a cute memory.

My daughter, London growing up with fresh bread in the house is so funny, mum can you buy these store buns they are so yummy! ugh isn't this such as life..grass is greener somewhere else.

Todays show is about my first courtroom experience and the people I shared this with. I was by proxy along for the ride.

I'm a Daughter without a Mother.

Welcome back to Valerie's Variety Podcast with your host me, Valerie Moss this show is about ReViews, InterViews and my Daily Views. It's a story podcast about my life in Calgary, WhatEVER | WhenEVER. the Show drops every Tuesday.

Follow me on Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook

Instagram @ValerieJMoss

Pinterest @VJMoss

Facebook @ValeriesVarietyPod

Todays show is about growing with an absent Mom. Being a Mom and those people who impact me and you through Motherhood. Remember who matters to you...be the person who matters to this person.

Talk to you next Tuesday

ReView of Una Pizza + Wine - so Delicious

ReView of OeB Calgary restaurant locations.

a recent reView of Tenshi Sushi - didn't disappoint!

a year in the making for Valerie's Variety Podcast...thanks for tagging along with me on Tuesdays.

episode 46 season 1

a personal story about mental health...

Welcome back to another episode of Valerie's Variety Podcast, this is a follow up to a previous show, episode 35 Mental Health Podcast Challenge where I told an intimate story about how we all suffer from Mental Health at one time or another in our lives. For those of you who are new to my show, I thought I'd share this episode again, plus it's a good reminder to be a little extra patient, call a friend that you haven't heard from for sometime be a little better of a person.

The person who put the request out back in January is an acquaintance in my Calgary Podcasting community, his name is River - great name hey? He lost his sister to suicide recently and since this change of life moment he's been a huge advocate of mental health in our community (and abroad I'm sure).

Insert episode here...What did you think of this? Mental Heath Podcast Challenge - Accepted! They chose me and I received a little kit by a local company called Stresscase (great name hey) containing all sorts of lovely items:

Golden Milk: It's a powder you mix with your favourite "milk" coconut oil, MCT oils, or butter, heat and simmer...ingredients are Tumeric, Ginger, Pepper & Cinnamon - I have't tried this yet but it's supposed to reduce inflammation, support brain and joint health and calm digest issues...oh it's a deep mustard colour - stunningLoving Bath Bomb: self explanatory however, it's a flat disc style about the size of a hockey puck!Rose Quartz Meditation Crystals: to reduce anxiety with a little note of step by step instructions about how to calm your mind. These little gems are soft sided, when they touch each other it's a beautiful 'tap' soundBarefoot venus, Gingerly Green Tea Cleanser: packed with skin loving extracts of White Pine Bark, green Tea, Ginseng, Bearberry and Licorice.

Thank you StressCase for this lovely kit. Plus it was hand delivered to my home! Check out the StressCase Story - it's so amazing, a Mother-Daughter Team came up with this. Check out my blog for all of the pictures of my goodies. Thank you to River and his team for choosing my blog/podcast amongst the entries. I had to reflect on this challenge but having a voice and platform to share my story, will hopefully encourage you to share yours. To me, a stranger, to your friend, to your colleague, if you need to share your story and get it off your chest, do that- it's healing. You know what else is a great outlet, write your future self a letter. I used this method/outlet a lot growing up to get my feeling off my mind and stored securely in my journal...when I had my daughter I used journalling as my psychologist...except I did the writing with pen.

Talk to you next Tuesday