Cut the old tofu into square blocks and place them in a cool and ventilated place to ferment for about ten days. A layer of fine white fluff will grow on the tofu. Then sterilize the fermented tofu with white wine, wrap it with chili sauce, and put it into sealed jars one by one. After another ten days of fermentation, the fermented tofu is ready.

Xu He had tasted it once before when he attended a banquet. He just picked up a little bit with chopsticks, and the taste of fermented tofu was enough to spread throughout his mouth.

He made two kinds of fermented tofu. One was a spicy red fermented tofu made by mixing minced ginger, chili peppers and pepper powder. The other was a plain white fermented tofu without any spicy ingredients.

He had seen mutton restaurants in the city put white fermented bean curd in a bowl and mix it with broth to use as a dipping sauce. He had never eaten it, but he had seen diners lingering in mutton restaurants. Mutton has a fishy smell, and using a strong-flavored condiment like fermented bean curd as a side dish does help to suppress the smell. He thought it was a good way to eat it.

He put the fermented tofu in a small jar like the kimchi jar, but the jar was much smaller than the big kimchi jar, even pocket-sized. If the jar was big, people would often open it to take out the fermented tofu and not finish it. The fermented tofu in the jar would be exposed to more air and would easily deteriorate and ruin the taste.

He first made two jars to try out, but he did not stop at making fermented tofu. Since you're already starting to make jar dishes, you might as well make more varieties, such as pickled peppers, soybean paste, bean paste, dried radish, radish rolls, dried bamboo shoots, sauerkraut and minced meat sauce, sour cowpea and minced meat sauce... Don't make too many things.

When he was at the Xu family before, he had made dried radish and radish rolls. Not only were these two things simple, the ingredients used were at most chili peppers and peppercorns. He could find all the ingredients in his own fields or on the hills, so Liu Xianglan didn't say much.

Make some snacks to eat, such as porridge in summer and radish rolls, which are crispy and fragrant, and everyone loves them. This is also a jar dish that almost every household in the countryside will prepare in their spare time. On weekdays, when you pass by a farmer's yard and see cut radishes drying on a clothesline or in a winnowing basket, they are probably going to be pickled radishes or dried radishes.

The preparation of dried radish is actually very similar to that of fermented tofu. To be precise, the preparation methods of these jar dishes are similar, except that the main ingredients are either fermented, dried in the sun, or soaked... Tofu and fermented bean curd need to be fermented, and dried ingredients like radish shoots need to be dried in the sun to remove the moisture, so that the radish and shoots will be tough and not easy to spoil; soybeans need to be soaked in water.

Xu He set up a winnowing basket in the large yard outside the house and pulled a few hemp ropes to soak, dry, and ferment the food, which suddenly occupied half of the huge yard.

When the weather was fine, he would push Erbao's crib into the small dining room with an open window. He could watch and play with the child while he kept his hands busy, cutting twigs for the freshly picked peppers, peeling garlic, and removing the shiny black seeds from the dried and bursting Sichuan peppercorns.

Not knowing whether such seeds could germinate and grow into pepper trees, Xu He simply collected them and did not throw them away. Instead, he threw them all into the long flower bed built against the wall.

Country people like them didn't understand much about elegance. They used all the empty space for growing flowers for him to plant garlic, onion heads, garlic sprouts and shallots. They also dug up Litsea cubeba and Sichuan pepper trees from the mountains... In short, it looked very much like a village house.

Zhang Fangyuan didn't say much, but instead thought it was a good idea. If he wanted to cook noodles at home, he didn't have to go to the fields to pick vegetables. He could just pick the ingredients in the yard.

"Oh, I've made so many."

When Zhang Fangyuan came back, he looked at the beans and bamboo shoots in the yard and couldn't help but go forward to grab a handful.

"There aren't many of each, so I can't make many jars, but there are many of them, so if you put them together, it will be a lot."

Xu He poured a cup of tea for Zhang Fangyuan: "Why did you come back so early today? Didn't you go to the city?"

"I went there. My friend, the shop is well taken care of. I have already replenished the goods that other shops wanted, and I also went to give new orders. Song Yong, the merchant who bought goods from our shop last year, came to place an order again." Zhang Fangyuan took a sip of tea and said, "This time he wanted more than before. I think it will sell well in other places. He has expanded the sales channels. I recommended a lot of ointments to him. We can give them to him as soon as we replenish the goods in our warehouse."

Xu He responded. The business of the shop in the city was the biggest source of their income. As long as the business there was stable, he would be relieved.

Zhang Fangyuan added, "On my way back today, I saw a lot of city dwellers on the official road who were out for fun. Our teahouse is doing great business today."

Xu He did have some experience. Generally speaking, there were the most people in the city during festivals, and on ordinary days, except in winter, people in the city liked to go out of the city to have fun, either climbing high places to see the distant view, or going to Taoist temples to burn incense. They could eat vegetarian meals in the temples, stay in Zen temples, enjoy the flowers in spring and experience the harvest in autumn.

However, in the past, people in the city would generally experience the joy of farming in the nearest villages outside the city, and rarely come so far away unless there is a temple fair.

Zhang Fangyuan said, "I brought some wine and groceries back from the city to add to the tea shed. I heard from the people in Zaojiao Village that the Hongshi Village in front started planting flowers in the village two years ago, such as crabapple, winter jasmine, and peach and plum blossoms in their village. In early spring, they invited two scholars and storytellers to write poems and articles, boasting about it. This morning, many people in the city invited us to enjoy the flowers and have fun. They stopped by our tea shed."

"Although I haven't been there to see it with my own eyes, I heard that the city folks who returned also praised Hongshi Village for doing a really good job. Not only are there many flowers in the village, but there is also flat land facing the wind for flying kites, and there are also places for tourists to plant and buy flowers. In short, there are many things to do. This year, the city folks are not playing polo and cuju at the polo field on the outskirts of the city, and there are not many people at Diaoyutai either. They all heard about it and went to Hongshi Village."

When Xu He and other villagers heard this, they couldn't help but feel fascinated, not to mention those rich and idle people in the city.

"Hongshi Village is really capable. But the land is used to grow flowers. No crops are grown there?"

Zhang Fangyuan said, "Why not plant it? It's just that they didn't plant as much as in previous years. They went to the county government to handle the formalities and opened up some new wasteland. The county magistrate also praised Hongshi Village. It's even more prosperous now."

As he spoke, he could not help but sigh again: "It's a pity that our village has nothing outstanding. The village chief said the same thing today while drinking tea at the tea shed. There are only three or five fish ponds and three or two silkworm-raising families. We have a little bit of everything but not much. If we ask the villagers to concentrate on farming and silkworm farming, I'm afraid they won't agree. Then we won't have anything to promote for the city people to come and enjoy."

Xu He said: "It took several years to prepare for the Red Stone Village. If you do it sincerely, it may be possible."

"But this is also something the village chief should worry about. I hope he can do something so that our village won't fall behind." Zhang Fangyuan said, "Back then, Hongshi Village was the poorest village in the surrounding area of ​​Siyang. Now there are so many tourists, it's not like before. Besides, there are more tourists coming to our area from outside the city, so we have plenty of business to do."

Xu He's eyebrows moved slightly. Seeing that the man was so excited, he couldn't help but ask, "Do you have any ideas?"

"I have some ideas. If it works, we can expand the tea shed and build more houses. It would be best if we could build an inn. The land on both sides of the official road is wide, and there are mountains behind it, so it can be opened up."

It sounds great, but I'm afraid no one will live there. The location of their tea shed is neither good nor bad.

Although the tea shed is an intersection connecting all directions and is the best place to rest, it is not particularly far from Siyang after all. It may take two or three hours to walk to the city, but if you take a car, you can reach the city in two hours at the slowest and one and a half hours at the fastest.

With such a distance, few people would stay here, unless they don't have a car and pass by the tea stall in the afternoon. It would be dark when they reach the city, so they would have to rest for the night.

Zhang Fangyuan certainly knew this truth, so if he wanted to build the inn, he had to find a way to make people willingly stay there.

“Oh…ah.”

The sound of a baby's milk could be heard from the room. The two stopped talking. Zhang Fangyuan washed his hands hastily and went into the room to check on the child: "Are you hungry again?"

It was strange to see the two babies lying flat on the bed. Today they were swinging their chubby arms and legs, and the small quilt they were covering themselves with was kicked down a little by the two of them.

"They were all asleep just now, but now they woke up at the same time." In the past, either the elder brother fell asleep and the younger brother woke up, or the younger brother fell asleep and the elder brother woke up. This way it is easier, as you only need to hold the one who is awake to comfort him.

Zhang Fangyuan was able to pick up both cubs, holding one in each hand without any pressure. The eldest cub did not move around when being held by his father, but the second cub was more naughty, and his father still squeezed his hands and blew bubbles from his mouth when holding him. Xu He squatted down and wiped Erbao's mouth: "Rui Li drools too much."

"It's okay if he doesn't spit up the milk." Zhang Fangyuan looked at the kicking little brother and said, "You are so naughty. Were you the one who kept kicking him when you were in Daddy's belly? Look at your brother, he didn't move at all."

“Oh.”

Zhang Fangyuan was amused by the children and he held them in his arms and pulled them around. The second baby was a little naughty, but he didn't have much energy, and that little energy was used up quickly. Zhang Fangyuan didn't have time to hold him before he fell asleep again. The first baby didn't move much and kept his eyes open much more often, so the dad would hold him for a while longer. But even if he wasn't held, he wouldn't cry if he was put on the bed and someone was watching him.

If the little brother fell asleep and he was awake alone and there was no one outside the bed, he would cry.

At 12 p.m., the nanny came to feed the children. The two babies were well fed and lay on the bed without moving much. The warm sun at noon made people sleepy. The couple stayed in the house to look after the children and took a nap.