Month: April 2020

Stay The Fuck Home No Yeast Bread Edition

Yeast is incredibly hard to come by these days. Here are a few breads you can make without it!

Soda bread

I really love soda bread. It works great for toast in the morning. I personally wouldn’t use it for a sandwich and I never add raisins. I hate raisins.
Link to the recipe — https://youtu.be/PE-jbkbMFzg

Quick Breads

Corn Bread

It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken is my go to for a lot of recipes and recipe inspiration. I’ve made this corn bread before and can confirm that it is delicious!
Link to the recipe —https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/the-easiest-and-most-delicious-vegan-cornbread/

Banana Bread

Everyone has frozen bananas in your freezer. You know… the ones you keep saying you are going to use in smoothies. Ya… those ones. Make banana bread! Here is one of my favourite recipes from The Post Punk Kitchen!
https://www.theppk.com/2011/11/marbled-banana-bread/

Pumpkin Bread

If you dig far enough back into your cupboard, I bet you will find a can of pumpkin puree that is about to expire. Maybe that is just me. If you do, here you go! https://minimalistbaker.com/1-bowl-pumpkin-bread-v-gf/

Zucchini Bread

Really all I can say here is YUM!
https://www.veganricha.com/vegan-zucchini-bread-recipe/

Gluten Free Bread

Yup. I was going to throw a gluten free one in here! https://mindovermunch.com/recipes/vegan-gluten-free-bread/

Stay The Fuck Home Authors Edition

One thing we can still do right now is thankfully read. Whether it is a blog or an actual novel, it is a great escape from what is currently going on right now. I love so, so many writers and am inspired by them. As a writer it is important to read as much as you can as it will benefit you in the end. Plus, reading is amazing! Below I’ve listed my favourite Toronto authors and where you can find their writing!

David Bateman is a powerhouse of talent! He is a photographer, painter, collage artist, poet, actor, playwright and writer! An all around entertainer! You can find him here!

Duncan Armstrong/TOPoet posts daily on his website and creates wonderful chap books – fresh poems, explanations of poems, serializations of my novels & a detailed look at my huge record collection – all at TOpoet.ca. You can order one from his website. Another super talent!

Heather Babcock is not only a talented writer, she is also a sassy redhead with a grand knowledge of the 1930s! Her debut novel Filthy Sugar will be coming out on May 26, 2020 and is available for order here soon. You can also read her blog Meet Me At The Soda Fountain here .

Heather Wood is not only an incredible writer and editor, she has hosted many wonderful literary events. I’m absolutely in love with her novel Roll With It (that is the roller derby girl coming out in me) and Fortune Cookie. Fortune Cookie can be found on Amazon as an ebook by clicking here.

John Oughton is a multi-talented photographer and writer. Mata Hari’s Lost Words is my favourtie of all of his books of poetry, but, I think you should buy them all so you can pick yours! They can be found here!

Philip Cairns is a creative force! He is an actor, poet, playwright, painter and writer! He is truly an inspiration. You can find out more about this super talent here!

Lisa de Nikolits is a huge inspiration of mine! I not only love her novels, I really love to hear her read live! This woman is a true force! Her writing can be https://www.theminervareader.com and
https://bit.ly/InterviewWithJohannaSkibsrud and
https://www.lisawriter.com.

Myna Wallin is beyond incredible! The first time I heard her read I was instantly in love with her work. It is absolutely impossible not to be! Confessions Of A Reluctant Cougar was the first of her novels I have read and I’ve been addicted ever since! You can find her work here.

Valentino Assenza is beyond amazing. When he reads his work in Italian, we all swoon! Along with reading his incredible work, you can listen to his velvet voice at CIUT’s Howl. Check out his writing here.

Stay The Fuck Home Read The Classics Edition

If you’ve read through all of your books and are looking for something else to feast your eyes on, yet are in the same boat as everyone else — can’t afford to buy books and the libraries are closed, I have a list of classics for you. The beauty, you can read them for free. Another hint for library card holders, most libraries have an app you can log into to read ebooks.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh http://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/waughe-bridesheadrevisited1945/waughe-bridesheadrevisited1945-00-h.html

Dracula by Bram Stoker http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345

East of Eden by John Steinbeck http://www.studynovels.com/Book/BookDetails?bid=534&name=East%20of%20Eden

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley https://www.gutenberg.org/files/84/84-h/84-h.htm

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1400/1400-h/1400-h.htm

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200991h.html

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/351

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton https://www.gutenberg.org/files/541/541-h/541-h.htm

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1184/1184-h/1184-h.htm

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett https://www.gutenberg.org/files/113/113-h/113-h.htm

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens https://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/768

Stay The Fuck Home Get In Touch With Yourself Edition

Yes. I know this title can sound one of two ways… a bit sexy time with yourself or a bit hippy dippy. This blog post is leaning more to the latter. Sorry to disappoint those who were hoping for the former. You do what you gotta do!

Yoga Yes, I’m talking about yoga… again. Seriously, if you aren’t already doing it, do it! There are so many benefits to doing yoga every, single day. Your health improves, you get physically stronger, you tone your body, build muscle and flexibility. On top of that, it is really good for your mental well being.

Yoga With Adriene has amazing beginner videos. I’ve been doing yoga for years off and on (now permanently on) and every once in a while, I will go back and do some beginner yoga videos to make sure I’m doing the basics right. Here is a great video I did today.

Mediation A great way to ground yourself, to start to clear the cobwebs out of your head and to help move out those negative thoughts. It can be hard in the beginning to concentrate, but trust me, it gets easier.

Learn Tarot I have friends that do a card pull every single day. It helps to ground them. They also use the cards for meditation. Some of them do readings online (professionally) and if you want to get in touch with one of them let me know. Otherwise, you can learn how to do Tarot basics on your own. You can try free online courses or do a paid course by a Tarot professional such as Liz Worth. I have links below for both.

Liz Worth http://www.learntarot.com/

Free http://www.learntarot.com/

Journal A great way to relieve stress and get things off your mind or chest is to journal. You could do it old style and get one with a lock and key (anyone getting flashbacks of catching your little brother or sister trying to open your diary), or just use one of the many journals you have laying around. You know, the ones you keep buying because you have always planned on writing a journal and you did it for two days and stopped. Did I call a few of you out. 😉

If you aren’t comfortable writing about how you are feeling, you could also make it about the things you are observing around you. Or, just use it as a way to put down a flowing of words. Write poems, dirty limericks. Just write something.

Kindness and Mindfulness We go through life being conscious (I hope you are) that we need to show kindness and mindfulness to others, yet, we tend to forget to do this for ourselves. Before this Twilight Zone episode that is now our lives started, most lived fast paced lives, never taking time for themselves. Now that everything has come to a halt, we have no choice other than to slow down. That however, doesn’t mean spending all of your time sitting on a couch watching Netflix. Do one or all of the things I listed above and in addition to that, take a long bath, start reading through that pile of books you keep meaning to get to. Give yourself a home spa day. Paint your toenails. Take an actual shower and dress-up! Sing a song at the top of your lungs, even if you can’t sing. Do good things for yourself.

What positive things are you doing for yourself?

Stay The Fuck Home DJs and Virtual Dance Party Edition

Sometimes, even the hardest of nuts can crack. I’m a pretty hard nut and up until the last few days have been ok. Then… depression has started creeping back in. For myself, when this happens, I find music really helps. Especially going out to see it live. Since we are living in the Twilight Zone, that’s not possible and I’ve been listening to a lot of music. It’s a good way to lift your soul and get your ass moving. We are need to find ways to get our asses off the couch!

Here are some of my favourite DJ’s and I’ve thrown in a few virtual dance parties!

DJ Blush https://www.facebook.com/DJBlushTO/

(April 18) Saturday Night Studio 54 Dance Party LIVE https://www.facebook.com/events/246084739912065/

Dj Cher and Slow Fizz https://www.facebook.com/slowfizztoronto/

(April 25) https://facebook.com/events/s/slow-fizz-fb-live-with-dj-cher/515013619402055/?ti=icl

DJ Misty Fujii https://www.facebook.com/djmistyrocknroll or http://www.djmisty.com

(April 24) The!! Beat *Virtual* Dance Party https://www.facebook.com/events/1328730200662009/ (It’ll start early in Toronto @ 8am but will go until noon 🙂 AND it’ll be up for two weeks on twitch to watch later too.)

Mark Malibu’s GoGo Radio Show Mark Malibu’s Surfin’ a Go Go Radio Show is every Sunday at 2 PM EST on Surf Rock Radio

Radiocore’s DJ’s have been doing a lot of Facebook Live events! https://www.facebook.com/radiocoreinternetradio/ or http://www.radiocore.org

DJ Starboy TO https://www.facebook.com/NotThatStarboy/

DJ Swankenstein https://www.facebook.com/DJSwankenstein/
(April 18) Nothin’ more fun and tasty than a Cheeseburger in Quarantine. Next Saturday night Apr. 18 at 6pm EST on Twitch at twitch.tv/djswankenstein. Then, Margaritaville U’s Virtual Trivia night goes live at 7pm EST. Get over to the page and get yourself signed up for your chance to win some fab Margaritaville swag and prizes.

Stay The Fuck Home Sewing Machine Maintenance Edition

Sewing has always been a skill I am really glad I have. I’ve went through phases of doing it as a hobby or doing it as a way to make extra money. These days a lot of people are pulling their machines out of the closet, dusting it off and putting it to work. But, and there is always a but, some of those machines have been sitting there for years and that means, before you use it, it needs to be cleaned and oiled! In a regular situation, you would take it to a sewing machine repair person and have it done, but in times like these, you are going to need to do it yourself. Additionally, you really should be cleaning your machine every time you use it.

Now, before you start yelling at me, there are three levels of cleaning. The every time you sew cleaning is basically blowing the lint out of your machine and can be done with canned air. I do right before I sew. All kinds of lint from your thread and material get inside the presser foot and throat plate and bobbin case and can cause issues.

Then there is level two. In this level, you remove the presser foot and throat plate and the bobbin case. You again give it a good cleaning with canned air AND oil all accessible moving parts with sewing machine oil.

Level three is when you take it in for yearly maintenance.

For level one and two, I am including links below for tutorials on how to do it yourself. Everyone’s machine is different and because of this, please also refer to your machines manual. If you don’t have the manual try looking for it via google. Unless your machine is a hundred years old, then… I don’t what to tell you. Though in those cases, it will likely be a treadle machine and I know there are specialists out there for that too!

This is a great step by step article. https://www.mybluprint.com/technique/clean-your-sewing-machine

This is an older video, but a really thorough one on how to clean and oil your machine.

Stay The Fuck Home The Hack It Series – Yeast

Yeast. Another unicorn. Especially fast acting yeast. Along with flour, it has disappeared from shelves. However, there is a solution, you just need to put a wee bit of work into it. But once you have made the initial yeast, you will always have yeast. What the hell am I talking about? This wonderful thing called a sourdough starter/wild yeast.

So far, I’ve blogged about how to make your own bread and how to make your own flour, now I’m going to help you make your own yeast.

If you want to read my adventures in making sour dough bread, here are the links. To see how to make your own sour dough starter/wild yeast see below.

https://notvegannowvegan.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/adventures-in-sourdough/

https://notvegannowvegan.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/i-will-become-a-sourdough-bread-baking-master/

https://notvegannowvegan.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/sourdough-bread-baking-round-2/

https://notvegannowvegan.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/am-i-a-sourdough-master-yet-one-year-later/

How To Make A Sour Dough Starter and How To Maintain It

This is a really good article on how to make your own starter/wild yeast. The one thing I would change about this recipe is use rye flour. You will end up with a much stronger starter and a better flavour. I originally tried using all purpose flour when I originally tried to make my own starter and it didn’t work. You really need a good whole grain. Spelt also works well, but rye has produced the best starter and bread for me.

https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-your-own-sourdough-starter-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-47337

This article will also tell you how to maintain your starter. When not using my starter for bread, I will feed it once a week.

Stay The Fuck Home The Hack It Series — Flour

In a world where the things we need, especially food, are no longer readily available, I thought I would start a second series called Hack It. Today I am going to post about flour.

Currently, buying flour is like trying to find a real life unicorn. Trying to buy specialty flours of any kind — good fucking luck! Seriously, good luck. I’ve come up with a list of ways to make your own. Read on!

As someone who has been making her own bread for years, both in a bread machine and traditional sourdough, I go through a lot of bread flour. Right now, because of the pandemic, everyone and their uncles cousin have decided to do the same and because of this, there is ZERO bread flour on the shelves. Until recently, even all purpose flour was hard to find. I have noticed it returning to grocery shelves. However, I still need bread flour. Solution, I will make it my own damn self.

I thought it would be helpful to not only add recipes and links to make specialty flours, I am also including how to make your own flour.

Bread Flour Recipe

If you plan on making sour dough or breadmachine bread, you really need bread flour.

Measure out 1 cup all-purpose flour (4 1/2 ounces or 129 grams).
Remove 1 1/2 teaspoons (1/8 ounce or 4 grams).
Add 1 1/2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten (1/8 ounce or 5 grams).
Whisk or sift to combine.

Self Rising Flour

Many biscuit recipes call for this kind of flour. The occasional cake recipe does as well.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Whisk or sift to combine.

How To Make Flour

Making your own flour is actually really easy, especially if you have a blender. You can also use a coffee bean blender, you will just need to do it in smaller batches. I’ve made my own flour before using wheat berries or oats, but you can use many different grains, depending on the type of flour you want. Here is a link to a really helpful article about how to do it yourself.

http://eatsimplyeatwell.com/2013/01/make-it-yourself-fresh-ground-flour-in-a-blender/

Pastry Flour
Combine 3 parts all-purpose flour to 1 part cake flour. Sift several times to ensure complete mixing.

Cake Flour
https://www.mybluprint.com/article/how-to-substitute-cake-flour

Almond Flour and Other Nut Flours

Place nuts, skins removed, into a food processor or a high speed blender blender with a pulse option. Pulse until it becomes a fine, flour-like texture. Make sure you don’t over-pulse, or you’ll end up with nut butter, which in my opinion is a win, win kinda mistake.

Stay The Fuck Home Bats, Bats, Bats Edition

I can’t wait until the weather is warmer and we can finally break out the bat detector and head out for our nightly bat walks. I absolutely love bats and last summer I blogged about it when we went out. I also added information about bats in each post. I will do the same again this year. If you want to read about our adventures and learn about bats, I have provided all of the links below!

BATS AND MOSQUITO BITES! (July 15, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/07/15/bats-and-mosquito-bites/

LET’S GET BATTY!!! (July 21, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/07/21/lets-get-batty/

WHERE IS MY BAT SIGNAL? (July 28, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/07/28/where-is-my-bat-signal/

BAT ADVENTURES AND CROW SIGHTING MAP (August 3, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/08/03/bat-adventures-and-crow-sighting-map/

MYTHS AND TRUTHS ABOUT BATS (August 5, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/08/05/myths-and-truths-about-bats/

BATS, BATS AND MORE BATS! (August 11, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/08/11/bats-bats-and-more-bats/

THE BAT DAYS OF AUGUST (August 19, 2019) https://lizzieviolet.com/2019/08/19/the-bat-days-of-august/

Stay The Fuck Home The Pre-Code Movie Edition

I’ve always been madly in love with Pre-Code movies and their sassy dames! I am channelling them right now, especially Barbara Stanwyck. These women were tough, innovative, creative, resourceful and sassy. The dialogue in these movies is magical and the stories intriguing and inspiring. They are a great distraction in a time where we need to take our minds off what is going on. Below are some of my favourite blogs and I’ve listed movies you can find on YouTube.

Blogs

Meet Me By The Soda Fountain https://meetmeatthesodafountain.home.blog/

Shadows and Satin https://shadowsandsatin.wordpress.com/

Hollywood Genes https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/31328010

Pre-code.com http://pre-code.com/

Classic Movie Hub http://www.classicmoviehub.com/blog/pre-code-corner-so-you-want-to-be-a-nurse-tricks-of-the-trade-pre-code-style/

KPBS https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/jan/02/new-film-geeks-series-focuses-pre-code-hollywood/

Privilege of Legends https://privilegeoflegendsblog.com/category/pre-code-hollywood/

Movies to Stream (free)

Freemeo (channel) has a lot of Pre-code movies. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyATfpppWGDuAuTXY5OFkHg

Sensation Hunters