Gu's mother asked Li Qingyun if she wanted to make bean buns. Visiting relatives and friends during the New Year is considered a courtesy, and there is nothing else good to offer these days.

Li Qingyun and Qiuju discussed it and decided that the three families should work together. As each of them had small children, it would be troublesome to do it alone, so it would be better to work together. With the combined efforts of three people, they could finish quite a lot in one day.

Gu's mother said that the bean buns made by Li Qingyun during the last Mid-Autumn Festival were very delicious, so she made them according to Li Qingyun's recipe and told them in advance what ingredients to prepare. If they were not available at home, she could exchange them for other grains.

So, the three families gathered enough food to make bean buns and gathered at Li Qingyun's house to make bean buns. From morning to night, the pot at home never stopped cooking, and they made one basket after another. Fortunately, the three families had all their supplies, so they were able to make the job.

After steaming a basket of dumplings, put it in the snow to freeze. It will become hard in a short time.

After all the ingredients were prepared, I made more than a thousand bean buns, which can be divided into three or four hundred for the family. It is not easy to make them once, but since I have a natural big refrigerator, I can make more and freeze them, and then heat them up when eating. It is very convenient.

The tofu buns were ready, and the next day Li Qingyun took out the lard from several wild boars and large pieces of fat pork in the space and refined them into lard. The lard and fat from four wild boars and the large vat for storing grain were enough to refine a whole vat of oil. After cooling, it was directly thrown into the space for storage.

No matter what delicious food you cook at home in winter, you can’t smell it outside.

With this big vat of lard, they won't have to buy suet for the whole next year.

After joining the army, I won’t be able to live as recklessly as I do now. I have to be careful and cautious in every move. I will deal with some things that can be handled now first, since there is always room.

The oil residue from refining filled two large basins, and she decided to make dumplings with it all.

In addition to the oil residue, a lot of fresh wild boar meat is cut and added to ensure the delicious taste. You can make dumplings once and eat them until the beginning of spring.

This project kept her busy for a whole day and half a day before she finished it, even with the help of Dabao, a farmhand.

The main reason is that kneading the dough and rolling out the dough is too laborious. Before, making about a hundred dumplings was already very difficult. Now with so much filling, I can make seven or eight hundred big dumplings, and I used two large bags of flour alone.

Fortunately, there is plenty of white flour in the space.

If the villagers saw so much flour and meat, they would probably be shocked. What kind of life is this for landlords?

After making the dumplings, Li Qingyun froze some of them outside and kept some in the open space.

At this point, preparations for the New Year are almost complete.

When Gu's mother came to see Erbao, Li Qingyun took the opportunity to ask her for advice on how to cut paper-cuts. Gu's mother had very skillful hands. A pair of scissors and a stack of red paper were turned into lifelike paper-cuts of various styles in her hands.

Dabao was stunned. Gu's mother even made him a small red lantern out of red paper, tied it with a wooden stick, and held it in her hand. It looked so fashionable.

Li Qingyun also likes it very much.

Erbao was laughing foolishly while holding the little rabbit cut by Gu's mother, and soon he chewed it until it became wet.

Li Qingyun took the red paper from home to see Cheng Jie in advance, asked for a few pairs of couplets, and gave Cheng Jie fifty cents as a fee.

If you wait until New Year's Eve to go, you will have to wait.

This is also the experience passed down by Gu's mother. Because Cheng Jie is a cultured person in the village, every Chinese New Year, everyone will go to him to write couplets. He is busier than usual. Since we are from the same village, it is embarrassing to cut in line and we often have to wait for a long time.

In fact, her calligraphy is not bad, but her original body could not read large characters, and most of the characters nowadays are traditional Chinese, so it is better to have less trouble than more.

On New Year's Eve, Li Qingyun dug Dabao up early in the morning, and the mother and son swept away the non-existent dust with a broom.

The new house has not been lived in for long, so there is basically no dust.

After breakfast, we started to paste window decorations and couplets.

Make a paste with flour or whole grain powder, brush it on the back of red paper, and stick it on the door and windows.

After some tidying up, the new house feels much more beautiful.

Li Qingyun also decorated the door of the old house next door with a little red to make it look festive. Gu's father has been helping them keep an eye out for anyone in the village who needs this old house. So far, no one has bought it, so it has been empty.

This was exactly what Li Qingyun wanted. She didn't like living next to others. Although she was not afraid when she had a quarrel with Mrs. Gu, she actually had a little social anxiety.

For lunch on New Year's Eve, she invited Gu's father and mother to her home, and they all had dinner back at the old house.

This is also everyone's custom. Even though the family has separated, they still have to spend New Year's Eve with their parents.

Not counting Erbao, she was very meticulous in preparing lunch for four people, and carefully prepared six dishes, implying good luck. The dishes were not large in quantity and were cooked with great care.

The pork tenderloin that was divided earlier was used to make a dish of sweet and sour pork and a dish of shredded pork with fish flavor; the smallest frozen fish was taken out and used to make a braised fish and a small plate of blanched shrimps; the rabbit meat that was left over was used to make a dish of spicy diced rabbit, which was a bit similar to the dry pot of later generations, spicy and flavorful; and finally there was a big bowl of mutton and mutton offal soup with carrots.

Five dishes and one soup are ready. Li Qingyun also scooped out a plate of spicy cabbage that she made herself. It is simply a magic tool to relieve greasiness. I eat a lot of meat this winter, and I rely on it to relieve the greasiness.

Father Gu first drank a bowl of mutton soup. He had cold legs, a condition he contracted when he was a soldier in his youth, and the pain would come in winter.

At the beginning of winter this year, the old woman cooked mutton soup for him, and the pain was reduced, and he felt warm all the time.

This was of course also due to the new cotton-padded jackets and quilts that Li Qingyun made for them.

But it did not hinder his enthusiasm for mutton soup at all. Drinking it warmed his whole body.

This lunch was the most attentive meal Li Qingyun had prepared since she came here. It included pork, fish, lamb, and rabbit. The dishes were quite complicated, but the taste was so delicious that you couldn't stop eating. You could tell by the way everyone at the table devoured the food.

Dabao likes sweet sweet and sour pork, Gu's father likes mutton soup and braised fish, and Gu's mother loves fish-flavored shredded pork and spicy diced rabbit.

Li Qingyun likes boiled shrimp. She hasn’t eaten shrimp for a long time and she really wants to have it.

Everyone had their favorite dishes on the table, and both the host and the guests enjoyed it very much, and in the end they basically finished all the food.

"Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Second Brother, for preparing such a delicious meal. I haven't eaten such a sumptuous and exquisite meal for many years. When I was young and worked as a servant, the host rewarded me with such a meal. It was unforgettable." Father Gu said with a hint of reminiscence.

In fact, Li Qingyun quite likes Gu's father, a patriarch who never spoils the fun.

What I'm afraid of is that you work hard to prepare a table of food, and he says to you that it's such a waste. That would be a real bummer.

Li Qingyun was also satisfied with this dinner, which was considered a successful early warm-up for the New Year.