Chapter 103 Back to Xinjiang Fangfang, Mom came all the way to Xinjiang to see you...

By early October, the Lin family had basically finished their farm work, and Chen Mian and the others should be returning to Xinjiang.

Two days before leaving, Yan Yuhua and Lin Huijun made a lot of leavened flatbreads to take with them on the road.

The pancake contains eggs, oil, salt, and other seasonings, as well as some crushed Sichuan peppercorn leaves.

When it's fresh out of the pan, it's crispy and you can smell the aroma of Sichuan peppercorn leaves if you get close.

I braised another pot of beef. I removed the excess tendons and membranes from the best beef shank and soaked it in clean water for five to six hours.

Change the water periodically until the blood in the beef is completely removed.

Place the pot in cold water, add scallion segments and ginger slices, bring to a boil and skim off the foam, then add star anise, cinnamon and other spices, a little soy sauce and rock sugar, and continue to simmer for an hour.

The steps for making braised beef are no different from those for other braised dishes. The secret to making it delicious, besides cleaning the ingredients thoroughly and being generous with the seasonings, is the mystery of time.

Any dish that needs to absorb flavor, from braised meat and vegetables to stir-fried pork with garlic sprouts, tastes best the second time around.

The first meal wasn't flavorful enough, and the second meal wasn't as amazing. The same goes for braised beef; after stewing, it needs to be left to sit overnight with the broth.

Slice it again the next day and enjoy its delicious flavor.

While Yan Yuhua was braising meat, He Maimiao lifted the kitchen curtain and came in.

She stood behind her mother-in-law, her lips moved a few times, but she didn't say anything.

Chen Mian sat obediently in front of the stove, tending the fire while eating bananas and pears.

Banana pears are also one of the local specialties of Fengxi. They are similar in shape to ordinary pears, and their skin is green when they are unripe, at which time they are crisp and hard.

After being picked, leave them at room temperature for seven to ten days. The skin will gradually turn from green to yellow, and at this time the texture will become soft, glutinous and juicy.

It is named "banana pear" because the process of transformation is similar to that of a banana.

Yan Yuhua took out the dough she had prepared in advance and kneaded it again. She then pressed it into a rectangle and brushed a layer of oil on the surface.

He took out another onion, chopped it into pieces, and waited for a long time, but his daughter-in-law didn't say a word.

She wasn't in a hurry. She turned around, pushed aside her daughter-in-law, pulled a cabbage from the ground, washed it, and shredded it.

He Maimiao remained silent, but she didn't leave either.

Yan Yuhua's lips twitched. She walked to the stove, opened the pot lid, picked up a small piece of beef with her chopsticks, and handed it to her.

"Here, have a piece too. Eat it and then get out of here."

He Maimiao took the piece of beef blankly, mechanically stuffed it into her mouth and ate it before she realized what was happening.

"Mom, I didn't come here for food."

Yan Yuhua: "Then what are you doing here? I've never seen you in the kitchen more than a few times."

"I...I..." He Maimiao looked at Chen Mian in front of the stove, stammering and unwilling to speak.

"What embarrassing thing have you done now? You don't even dare to say it in front of the child."

He Maimiao said shyly, "I didn't do anything, I just wanted to..."

"I want to go to Xinjiang with you to see Qiaofang," she finally said, closing her eyes.

Yan Yuhua raised an eyebrow: "So, is it you who wants to see the child, or Junhui?"

Her foolish son and daughter-in-law are a perfect match; neither of them is easy to deal with.

He Maimiao: "We both want to go."

"Did you two go together to see the kids, or to go out and have some fun?"

"Besides, Qiaofang is already in high school, she doesn't need your help anymore," Yan Yuhua said slowly.

"You two just stay home and be back in a while."

As soon as she finished speaking, He Maimiao knelt down on the ground with a thud.

"Mom, are you still angry with me? Is that why you don't want to take Junhui and me to Xinjiang?" He Maimiao said, choking back tears.

During this period, Chen Mian and her friends stayed at the Lin family's house. The more she listened to them talk about their lives in Xinjiang, the more she felt that it was a good place to make money.

Chen Mian made a fortune in Xinjiang and brought her parents there. Now they're back and planning to bring her mother-in-law and the others over as well.

Her mother-in-law often complains that she and her husband are incompetent and not as capable as her sister-in-law. If they go to Xinjiang, will they really be able to come back?

What's more, after Qiaofang went to Xinjiang, she didn't want to come back and didn't even want her mother anymore.

She wanted to go and see what was so great about Xinjiang.

He Maimiao: "Mom, please say yes, I beg you."

"Get up from the ground first," Yan Yuhua said with a helpless pout.

"Please promise me first."

"Get up!" Yan Yuhua's voice became more serious.

Seeing that things were not going well, He Maimiao quickly rolled up, clasped her hands together, and obediently stood still with her head down.

Chen Mian smiled and persuaded her grandmother to agree; her aunt was really too funny.

"Grandma, Qiaofang has gone to school, and I need a family member to help me run the restaurant."

I think my aunt is a good match. The restaurant is close to my cousin's school, and the whole family can stay together.

After hearing Chen Mian's words, Yan Yuhua had a sudden thought. Although her daughter-in-law was stupid, she didn't have any bad intentions.

She's quick-witted and has a sharp tongue, so she'd be perfect for helping Mianmian run the shop.

Yan Yuhua: "But if we all go, all this big thing at home will be left to waste."

Chen Mian pondered for a moment, "If you can't bear to part with the land back home, I'll lease a farm for you when you go to Xinjiang. You can grow whatever you want."

"How about it? We can make it exactly like this place."

Yan Yuhua fell into deep thought, and finally decided that she and her husband, along with their son and daughter-in-law, would go to Xinjiang to stay for a while.

We'll make plans after we've figured out the situation there.

Ebony City at the same time.

Chen Muhe, who stayed behind at the farm, was washing the sweet potato mountain with a water hose in the open space outside the yard.

Lin Qiaofang was setting up the borrowed machine, and even Zhijiayi, who had moved out long ago, came back to help.

With little rain and plenty of sunshine this year, Ume City has had a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes, with extremely high yields.

The families who grew sweet potatoes were initially quite happy, as a good harvest meant higher incomes.

Unexpectedly, the yield was too high, the market supply exceeded demand, and the sweet potatoes could not be sold.

Chen Muhe's first task after starting work was to find a way out for the local unsold sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are not expensive to begin with, and the transportation costs to other places are higher than the cost of production.

After much thought, she decided to lead everyone in making sweet potato noodles.

Sweet potato noodles are made from sweet potato starch and can be stored for a long time.

One hundred catties of sweet potatoes can only yield 16-20 catties of sweet potato starch, and this starch can then be used to make 10-15 catties of sweet potato noodles.

Finished sweet potato noodles are much easier to sell; they can be used to make hot and sour noodles or sauerkraut stewed noodles.

Sweet potato starch can also be used directly to make food.

Autumn is here, and Taoyuan Restaurant can add a few new dishes.

Before her older sister returned from her hometown, Chen Muhe took it upon herself to purchase 10,000 jin of sweet potatoes from farmers to make vermicelli.

They were also promised that if the restaurant sold well, they would continue to buy from them.

The machine was debugged, and they built a rectangular pool in the open space using plastic sheeting and bricks to hold the slurry later.

After the huge sweet potato mountain was washed with a high-pressure water hose, most of the mud and sand were washed away.

However, to ensure the quality of the powder, it still needs to be manually sifted through again.

All three were wearing tall rain boots. Lin Qiaofang and Zhijia sat on small stools, each holding a sharp machete.

Any parts with obvious scars are cut off, and any parts that are too large are cut in half to make them easier for the machine to process.

Chen Muhe then switched to a lower-pressure water pipe to continue rinsing. After rinsing, she poured the processed sweet potatoes into a special machine.

The machine started working, and piles of sweet potatoes were shredded by the blades inside the machine. The light yellow liquid flowed into the pool through the connected water pipes, while the fibrous residue came out from the other side.

These fiber fragments won't be wasted; they can be processed into fertilizer to enrich the soil.

Soon, one pool was full, so they built a second one.

By the time all the sweet potatoes were processed, it was already the next day.

After the slurry in the pool has been left to stand for eight hours, the light yellow starch will settle at the bottom of the plastic sheet, and the ginger-yellow water on top can be poured off.

The starch obtained from the first sedimentation cannot be used directly; it needs to be removed and filtered again.

Use a wooden stick to mix the starch and water together again during filtration.

Depending on the filtration process, the water needs to be changed at least two to three times to obtain snow-white sweet potato starch.

At this point, the sweet potato starch is in a solidified state and needs to be broken into pieces with a cleaver or by hand, and then sun-dried for half a month.

The dried sweet potato starch will crack into smaller pieces on its own, and it still needs to be ground into a finer powder before use.

The sheer scale of the project made Chen Muhe vow never to suffer for herself again after she finally started drying the clothes.

Lin Qiaofang also felt that professional matters should be left to professionals, and there was no need for a small restaurant to keep costs so low. She suggested that they should just buy ready-made products from now on.

So, when Chen Mianmian brought her grandmother's family back to the farm, this was the scene she saw.

On the huge drying ground, seven or eight racks were set up, and from a distance, it looked like a snowy white expanse.

Three people were lying neatly on the ground in the middle.

Chen Mian couldn't help but chuckle: "Is this some kind of new welcoming gesture?"

"Hahahaha..." Yan Yuhua laughed heartily.

The others also tried to suppress their laughter.

Hearing the familiar laughter, Lin Qiaofang jumped up from the ground. "Grandma! What brings you here?"

A little girl with two braids ran over happily.

Upon seeing her mother behind her grandmother, she stopped abruptly and timidly greeted her, "Mom."

The sound wasn't much louder than a mosquito's buzz.

He Maimiao instinctively wanted to scold him, but then she remembered the solemn oath she had sworn at home and put on a gentle smile.

"Fangfang, your mother came all the way to Xinjiang to see you, and she brought you lots of your favorite foods."

Seeing her mother acting strangely, Lin Qiaofang hid behind her grandmother. "Grandma, what's wrong with my mom? Is she possessed?"

Yan Yuhua kept her merits hidden, saying, "You don't need to worry about it. She won't scold you anymore. Otherwise, just let her go back to her hometown alone."

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Author's Note: It's really not easy to get a bowl of hot and sour noodles! I'll get to eat them in the next chapter. [laughing and crying emoji]