Chapter 130 New Year's Eve

Zhao Yeqing smiled and said, "I won't tell you."

She reached out and picked off the rush, picked up a spoon and scooped a piece, only to find that there was still filling between the muffins.

It's so yellow that I can't tell it apart.

I chewed it and then I could tell clearly, "Is this a pear?"

Mu Xi nodded. "The pears from the mountain are a bit astringent. I pickled them with sugar for two days before taking them out. Are they okay?"

Zhao Yeqing nodded vigorously. The candied pears were not that crispy, but sweet and soft, just like the candied peaches she made last year.

The pancakes are soft and delicious with the sweet pear filling.

Mu Xi also tasted it, then shook his head, "It's not as delicious as what you made."

Zhao Yeqing's eyes curved as he picked up the bowl of pancakes. "I think it's good. Don't eat them. They're all mine."

-

After my birthday, New Year’s Eve is the next day.

A lot of things happened this year and the two of them hardly celebrated any festivals, so they thought they should be more particular about this day.

The weather was not very cold yet, and cooking too much food would easily go bad, so Zhao Yeqing thought of just eating the soup pot.

Kill a chicken, make mushroom and chicken soup pot, and add egg dumplings into it.

Fry some eggplant boxes, make some dumplings, steam a fish, and add some bacon and that's about it.

You don’t even have to cook rice, just some dumplings and vegetables will fill you up.

I remember that in the past Chinese New Year, it was rare to see fish and meat, but vegetables on the table.

Zhao Yeqing felt that green vegetables were still necessary. There were not many vegetables left in the vegetable garden. The lettuce he had been eating by breaking off leaves had now grown very tall and was blooming.

It's time to put it to rest.

Cut all the eggplants and make them into eggplant boxes, and use rabbit meat as the meat filling.

She didn't mean to be so innovative, but there was simply too much to eat.

The green leafy vegetables that are growing well in the vegetable garden right now are Chinese chrysanthemum and spinach. Chinese chrysanthemum can be put into soup pot, and spinach can be fried into meatballs with meat filling.

Zhao Yeqing was considering the feasibility of making rabbit meat and spinach meatballs when the screams of the chicken killed by Mu Xi interrupted her thoughts.

She lowered her head and continued to cut the Chinese spinach.

The radishes next to it are also growing well. Although they haven't "showed their shoulders" yet, the radish leaves on them are already lush green.

Chop it up and throw it to feed the rabbits.

The chicken is an old hen that has been raised for a year, so it takes a long time to stew it. We have to start stewing it from noon now. The longer it is stewed in a casserole, the better it tastes.

She took the vegetables into the kitchen, washed them and put them aside, leaving the eggplant for the eggplant box and cutting the rest into dice.

These are going to be made into dried eggplants. The eggplant flesh will shrink once it dries, so it needs to be cut slightly larger.

Use a dustpan to place on the outside baking rack.

The baking rack was built a few days ago and is used to dry hay.

The silage is almost ready, but hay still needs to be prepared. Now that the weather is getting colder and the sun is not as strong, we still have to light a fire to dry the hay.

And dried hay is better than sun-dried hay.

Mu Xi prepared the chicken and put it into a casserole to simmer it slowly.

Fried dishes also have to be made in advance, and the rabbit eggplant box proposed by Zhao Yeqing was adopted by Mu Xi.

It's all meat anyway, there's nothing wrong with it.

Zhao Yeqing asked Mu Xi to kill two more rabbits and also give a few dogs and two leopards as a snack tonight.

She was making the egg dumplings in the kitchen.

Egg dumplings need to be made by pouring a thin layer of egg liquid into a large round soup spoon. Shake the spoon so that the egg liquid evenly covers the entire spoon. Then place it on the fire and turn it so that the egg liquid turns into a thin egg skin.

Making egg dumpling skins is very time-consuming. In the past, during the Chinese New Year, my grandfather had to sit by the fire for more than an hour to make enough egg dumplings for two families.

Now that there are only two of them, Zhao Yeqing plans to make ten egg dumplings, which has the auspicious meaning of perfection.

After making the egg dumpling skin, she remembered that she hadn’t prepared the filling yet.

The egg dumplings are planned to be stuffed with fish meat, and Zhao Yeqing plans to use fish soup as the filling.

There were two fish in the bucket that he had caught in the morning. Zhao Yeqing picked up one and knocked it unconscious with the back of a knife before starting to process it.

The fish meat is removed, and the fish head and bones are used to make soup.

Mu Xi brought in two slaughtered rabbits, and the task of chopping the rabbit meat was given to him.

Zhao Yeqing took out the flour to make dumpling skins. This time he was more experienced than last time, and the dumpling skins became rounder and rounder.

He picked up the most perfect one and showed it off in front of Mu Xi, "Isn't it like it was pressed by a machine?"

Seeing Mu Xi smiling and applauding, he went back to continue rolling the dough.

Thinking of eating more meat in the evening, she planned to eat only six dumplings, while Mu Xi would eat fifteen. The dumpling skins would be ready soon.

She stepped on a small stool and took a piece of bacon with a little fat on it from the fire pit.

This piece is the wild boar that she hunted later. It has gained some weight in the autumn and is fatter than the one she shot before.

The smoking time is not very long and the meat is not that tough.

Use a knife to scrape off the black color on the bacon, cut off a small half and put it in water to boil, and hang the other half back on the fire pit.

This small half is used to make dumplings. Cabbage and bacon dumplings are more fragrant than ordinary cabbage and pork dumplings.

Pick another piece that has been smoked for a longer time, slice it and steam it.

The bacon for dumpling filling must be cut into small cubes and fried in a pan until oil slightly emits and the fat becomes somewhat transparent, then it is taken out and mixed evenly with the chopped cabbage.

By the time she finished wrapping the dumplings, Mu Xi had also prepared the rabbit meat filling.

The eggplants have not been processed yet. Zhao Yeqing is worried that they will oxidize and turn black after being cut, so he plans to wait until they are almost put into the frying pan before starting.

Mu Xi had also chopped the fish stuffing. Zhao Yeqing opened the lid of the fish soup pot. The milky white fish soup had been cooked over high heat. The fish soup was poured into a bowl. The fish bones and meat were discarded, but the fish head could be kept to feed the dog in the evening.

Wait until the fish soup cools down a bit, then add it into the fish filling with starch and beat until firm.

If the egg dumpling skin and meat filling are prepared separately, they need to be reheated to allow the skin to close.

Put the egg skin on the soup spoon, put the meat filling in the egg skin, smear a circle of unused egg liquid on the edge, close the skin and bake it on the fire, and the egg dumplings are done.

The sky outside gradually darkened, and Mu Xi heated the oil pan.

Zhao Yeqing cut the eggplant into strips, added rabbit meat filling, coated them with flour and egg liquid, and slid them into the oil pan from the edge.

Mu Xi was afraid that she would be splashed with oil, so he took over and asked her to pour the chicken soup into the big pot and cook the egg dumplings.

The last fish was steamed only after the stove was cleared.

Beside the kitchen door, Da Huang and a few of his cubs were squatting in a row obediently, all with sparkling eyes and sticking out their tongues.

Zhao Yeqing smiled and scooped a few pieces of chicken from the pot of chicken soup to share with them.

Huhu and Xuebing haven't come back yet, but it's time to eat.

The cup was filled with the happy water that I had been reluctant to drink. It was left outside the house for a day, so the Coke became ice-cold.

Zhao Yeqing raised his glass, his face flushed in the light of the fire, his eyes smiling, "Brother, happy New Year's Eve."