John and Jo # 7

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello everyone.
It's John and Joe back again.
Here we are.
Uh, probably wondering whatwe've been doing, for the last,
uh, couple of weeks since ourlast episode.
Uh, mother's Day has come andgone.
Uh, father's Day's coming for,uh, everyone to make sure you
get your, uh, father's Daypresence ordered early.

(00:23):
Weather's been pretty good.
Oh, well he's had a lot of rain.
Well, yeah, it's been almostnine degrees, but, Joe likes
that.
She likes heat.
I don't like heat.
I like it cooler in the house.
Joe likes it warmer.
So we have fans running in theheat, so that no, we have air

(00:43):
on.
Saw both of us.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what happened.
We've been making pasta and, uh,one of the things that we need
for pasta is a lot of herbs.
So we mentioned before that webought a, um, hydroponic garden
system off of, uh, Amazon.
And it's located in our laundry,in our laundry, sitting on a,,

(01:06):
cabinet.
People ask us where our gardenis, we'll say in the laundry,
and they wonder.
How we get dirt there.
But, we have no dirt, but wehave only water, which by the
way, if you're thinking aboutdoing something like this, uh,
you have to clean it every twoweeks.
You have to cut the roots off.

(01:27):
And that's not my job.
That's my, uh, assistance job.
Of course.
Well.
You trim the roots?
Yes, I trim the roots.
And you change plants around?
I do because, some plants grow alittle faster than others and
get stronger than others.
We have 13 slots, but we don'tuse'em all because some of our

(01:52):
plants get pretty big.
So, uh, when big we have a lighton this, uh, it's a infrared
kinda light.
That's red, blue, and white andit's on 16 hours a day and off
eight hours a day.
Plus we have a fan that we runwhile we, the lights are on,

(02:12):
right?
And we found out about that fanbecause we visited a local
hydroponic store, wanted to getsome sticks to, uh, straighten
out the herbs.
And he said, you don't needthat.
Just turn a fan on it and it'llstraighten it out.
So, and that has happened.
It worked.
And Joe's job is to, turn thefan on.

(02:35):
So, and harvest the plants andharvest the plants and cut the
roots and just generalmaintenance.
Everything a farmer would do.
I am a gentleman farmer, and Ijust take the crop after it's
harvested and use it andwhatever we're cooking, I think
we have to say 13 slots.
We only have about.

(02:56):
What, eight of them?
What do we have in our slots?
Well, we have, dill.
Dill, which grows very fast.
Uh, we have parsley, sage, with,and we had a little problem with
sage.
We had to replant our sage andnow it's coming up, uh, oregano.
Yeah.
Did you say mint?

(03:17):
Mint?
Chives.
Chives.
Um, we have two kind of basal.
And two kinds of chives.
They're sweet, kind of sweetbasil and like a unsweet.
I didn't know there were twokinds, but when you become a
farmer, you learn these things.
So we had, uh, we had chives onbaked potato.

(03:37):
Yes, that was very good.
And we had, last night we fixedfish and we had Dill.
Dill Joe cut up our.
Harvest.
She in the kitchen is our souschef, but she won't wear a cap.
She won't wear an apron.
She won't wear anything thatsays she's a sous chef.
Um, but of course I do all thework.

(03:58):
Well, that's, but as it shouldbe.
But I do, make the pasta and wedid have a raviola pasta.
We made, um, that wasinteresting.
Yeah.
We, we made it, I found a goodrecipe, using a, a good
combination of eggs and a doublezero flour, which by the way, I

(04:20):
buy from Italy.
And it's a real fine grindflour, uh, but you can't use it
when you're dusting your pastabecause it sticks to it and
absorbs.
So you have to use like.
Selina flour.
I know I'm getting realtechnical here for you.
None cooks, but, uh, bear withme.
Uh, so we do that and you rollit in our pasta machine, which

(04:44):
also came from Italy, uh, andabout six inch wide and about 12
or 18 inch long strips.
Put it down and Joe makes the,uh.
The filling.
Filling, which consists of what?
This time?
We used, uh, spinach and we hadto blanch the spinach with,,
olive oil and, also two kinds ofcheese, ricotta cheese, and, uh,

(05:10):
mozzarella.
No.
Ogo Ogo, okay, we're supposed touse Parmesan, but I can't afford
Parmesans in a big chunk, so Ibuy a cheaper pretend.
So I chopped up all the spinachand uh.
I know that I have to do when Ido the cheese, I have to do the

(05:33):
cheese first before I put theother ingredients in.
It makes it a lot smoother andeasier to handle, and we found
out also you're supposed todrain.
The ricotta cheese overnight incase there's any water in it,
which to drain.
But we didn't have any water.
We didn't have water.
No, we didn't have any soap.

(05:53):
We must have not had authenticricot cheese.
Probably don't.
We had store brand.
But anyway, uh, make two layersof pasta.
And then we have a pastacutters, which we also got from
Italy, which we stamp out ourravioli and, uh, trim'em with a.
Trimmer, which came from Italy.

(06:15):
And they turned out pretty good.
Yeah.
And put'em in a freezer andquick freeze'em.
And then we put'em in bags andthen we're ready.
Then we made,, tomato sauce.
Yes.
And the tomato sauce was prettygood.
It had, olive oil, tomato sauce.
Onions.
Uh, garlic.
Garlic.
And didn't it have sage in it?
Yes it did.
No sage or basil?

(06:35):
No.
Basil.
Ba basil.
Basil.
Cut up basil.
And it, it turned out prettydarn good.
We did learn though this time weneeded to do our pasta a little
bit thinner, and when you tookit out of the freezer to cook
it, we needed to cook it acouple minutes longer to soften
up the, uh, Ravi a little bit.
But anyway, the dough.
The dough, yeah.

(06:56):
So that was our experiencethat's taken us two weeks to do
it's trial and error, trial anderror, and, uh, we enjoy doing
it.
So far, we've not let anybodybut us eat it.
No.
Everybody wants to sample it.
It's a, a hobby that we can dotogether.
Yes.
A sous chef and a, uh, what doyou call the head Chef?

(07:18):
Chef.
You're the head chef.
Yes, chef.
That's how it works.
Yes, chef.
So anyway, that's our cookingexperience and that's our, uh,
garden that we did yesterday.
This thing holds five liters ofwater.
And I looked in there and Ithought, I, the garden folks,
the garden.
And I thought that tank, Ithought I saw waterline instead

(07:38):
of about three liters.
And the next morning I hear thisgurgling sound.
It's the pump running andthere's no water in it.
So, see, one of the reasons youhave to trim all the rubes is
because they, if they get in onthe pump, they stop the pump.
Yes.
So we're still learning a lotof, of technicalities and, uh,

(08:03):
Joe has to sterilize the, uh,cutting gear every time she
trims because I don't wanna mixthe crop, right?
You don't want to transport anydiseases or anything from one
herb to another.
So.
So it's uh, not for the light.
It is lighthearted.
If you can't handle it, don't doit.

(08:24):
You know, I mean, that's the,that's the trouble.
So what else we got?
Cooking?
Anything?
Uh, interesting.
Well, we're gonna be, eatingcattle out this week.
Eat out.
Yep.
We've got, uh, I think three orfour.
Dates for lunch.
And our granddaughter is, uh,here from, uh, Spokane,
Washington.

(08:45):
Washington, over in Augusta.
We're gonna get with her oneday, and that's a couple of
other ladies.
We're going to eat lunch out.
Joe's got a lunch out, uh,bunko, bunko, and then we've got
a lunch with one of ourcitizenship students.
When we taught citizenshipbefore Covid, we still stay in
touch with a lot of our, uh,students.

(09:05):
And we're having lunch with heron a Friday.
Yes.
So that's about it.
Well, have we bored you enough,Joe?
You got any, uh, closing remarksbefore we, uh, end it?
I just wish everyone well and,uh, good cooking.

(09:25):
Good cooking.
Now we do, uh, appreciate yourlistening to us.
We've got about 150.
Listeners.
And once you listen to once, boyoh boy, you'll want to keep on
listening because you never knowwhat we're gonna do next.
And we don't know.
And we don't know either.
That's, that's the beauty of it.
So, uh, when you're old though,you can do what you want, when
you want, can't you, honey?

(09:47):
Yes you can.
Yes you can.
That's the boss talking.
Okay, I think we're ready towrap it up.
Thanks for listening and, uh,catch us next time.
Next time.
Bye-bye.
Bye.