Chapter 114: Jujube Cake and Hawthorn Candy Snowballs
It was already past eleven when I got home. If I killed chickens and ducks at this time, dinner would have to be delayed until one o'clock.
There were no other dishes prepared at home, so we just had some hand-rolled noodles for lunch.
I picked some newly grown tender peppers in the yard, roasted them for a bowl, and then started to roll noodles to eat.
The chili oil made by Yu Hui is very fragrant, and when paired with the tender chilies, the noodles taste even better.
Even Zhao Changying ate two bowls of noodles.
After lunch, Gu Qiuyan washed some hawthorns and sour dates to eat.
"These fresh hawthorns and sour dates can't be kept for a few days. You have to eat them quickly, otherwise you can only dry them and soak them in water to drink." Gu Qiuyan said as she let her cousins eat hawthorns and sour dates.
Yu Hui picked up a red hawthorn and took a bite. It was sour and sweet and quite delicious.
Hawthorn is a good thing. It is not only sour and sweet and appetizing, but also can strengthen the spleen and help digestion.
The sour dates were a little too sour, making her grimace in pain.
"This hawthorn is so sour." Gu Xixi shivered because of the sourness.
Gu Qiuye squinted her eyes while eating sour jujubes and said, "Sour jujubes are definitely sour. They're also sour when you dry them and soak them in water. But don't underestimate their sourness; eating them is good for your health."
Yu Hui rolled her eyes and said, "If you make sour dates into sour date cake, they won't be so sour."
"Sour jujube cake?" Gu Qiuyan's eyes lit up. "Can sour jujube be made into cake?"
Yu Hui nodded. "Of course, I saw some educated youth from Northeast China in our village make it before. They even gave me a piece. It tasted pretty good."
"They also told me about a recipe for hawthorn candy snowballs. We can try that. Make hawthorn candy snowballs."
After drying and soaking in water, except for her and Gu Huai, the other kids definitely wouldn’t drink it.
The taste of drinking it in water is not as good as eating fresh hawthorn directly. These children will definitely not like it.
"Sugar snowballs, how much sugar would that take?" Zhao Changying said with a frown.
Yu Hui smiled and said, "It won't cost much, and we have plenty of candy at home, all given to us by others."
The last time people from the military family compound came to apologize, most of them brought white sugar. Now we still have more than a dozen bags of white sugar and rock sugar at home.
When Qiuyan and the others go back, you can also let them take a few packs back.
"Why did you give it to me?" Zhao Changying asked.
Yu Hui told the story about Liu Qin and the female soldiers in the art troupe who spread rumors about her.
Zhao Changying, Gu Qiuyan and Gu Qiuye were all very angry after hearing this. They were furious when they heard that the military district chief had made the decision for her and the female soldiers in the art troupe were also punished. Liu Qin apologized to her in public and was beaten by her man. Only then did they calm down a little.
"Sister Xiaohui, you are so awesome! You even dare to complain to the military district leaders." Gu Qiuye looked at Yu Hui with admiration.
Zhao Changying looked at her and said, "In the past, when I was bullied in the countryside, I didn't know how to say anything. Now that I'm in the city, I've become braver."
Zhao Changying was surprised and happy about her change.
That's how it should be. City people are more capable of bullying than country people. If you don't become bolder and tougher, you will be bullied to death by these people.
It may be a rumor today, but who knows what it will be tomorrow.
She should make a bigger fuss and let those people know that she is not someone who can be bullied. Only then will they behave themselves.
Yu Hui scratched her head pretending to be embarrassed. "I know now that you're not by my side anymore. If I don't stand up on my own, there's no one to help me."
Hearing this, Gu Huai frowned. Why didn't anyone help her? Wasn't he a human?
When Zhao Changying heard this, she glared at her son. It was because he had not done his job as a man that Xiaohui felt that no one could help him.
Gu Huai, who was stared at, touched his nose awkwardly.
As soon as they heard about sour jujube cake and hawthorn candy snowballs, Gu Qiuyan and the others could not sit still. They didn't even take their nap and asked Yu Hui to make sour jujube cake and hawthorn candy snowballs, and they helped her.
Yu Hui asked them to wash the sour dates and hawthorns. There were half a sack of sour dates and hawthorns, each weighing about ten pounds. Only half of the hawthorns were washed.
Hawthorn sugar snowballs will melt easily if left for a long time, so don't make too many at one time.
But even if we make four or five pounds, I guess they won’t be able to eat it all in two days.
When she made it herself before, she would eat while watching TV and finish a pound in an afternoon.
After washing the sour jujube, put it directly into a big pot and steam it. As soon as the smell of the sour jujube wafts out, the smell of Yu Li News comes.
"Gu Dong, what delicious food has your family cooked?" Seeing that there was no one in the yard and the main hall, Yu Lixin went straight into the kitchen.
Gu Dong turned around and replied, "My mother is steaming sour dates and making sour date cakes. She'll also make hawthorn candy snowballs later."
"Aunt Yu, Sister Qiuyan..." Yu Lixin called everyone one by one. "Sour jujube cake, it sounds delicious. I want to see how it's made too."
The sour dates were steamed for twenty minutes. Yu Hui put the sour dates in a basin and asked Gu Qiuyan and the others to let them cool down a bit before peeling them.
She scooped out the water in the big pot, added a ladle of clean water and half a bag of white sugar, and started to make a syrup of fried hawthorn.
When the syrup was cooked until it could be stretched into strings, she asked Gu Huai to help her move the iron pot down and put it on the unlit stove.
Pour in the drained hawthorns and start stir-frying. There are four or five pounds of hawthorns in this pot, so it is very difficult to stir-fry.
"Let me do it." Seeing that she was sweating, Gu Huai took the spatula from her hand. "Just keep stirring, right?"
"Well, stir-fry it until it turns sandy."
While Gu Huai was frying three hawthorns, Yu Hui went to help peel the sour dates, and Yu Lixin also washed his hands and helped.
Beibei insisted on coming to the kitchen, and Zhao Changying had no choice but to carry her there.
Yu Hui fed it a steamed sour date, which was so sour that it shook its head and avoided it when it saw it.
Because there were so many people, the jujube skins were peeled quickly, and the peeled jujube flesh filled a whole basin.
Yu Hui took a rolling pin and stirred the dough in the basin to separate the meat and the core, picking up the separated core while stirring.
The jujube seeds can be made into bodhi bracelets.
"Do you think it's okay?" Gu Huai was sweating all over. He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and said to Yu Hui.
Yu Hui handed the hawthorn meat to Gu Qiuyan and the others, and walked to the big iron pot to take a look. Each hawthorn was covered with snow-white icing, just like a layer of white snow, with red showing through the white.
"Wow, so beautiful." Gu Xixi stood on tiptoe and looked at the hawthorns in the pot, "like snow."
Yu Lixin and the others also gathered around and were amazed by the beautiful hawthorn candy snowballs.
It was the first time for them to see such beautiful food.
"That's enough." Yu Hui took out the clean dry colander that had been prepared and asked Gu Huai to shovel all the sugar snowballs into the colander. Four or five pounds of sugar snowballs filled up half of the colander.
Yu Hui placed the basket on the chopping board and said to her children, who were looking at her eagerly, "We need to wait for it to cool down before we can eat it."
Hearing this, the children could only swallow their saliva and wait.
Yu Hui asked Gu Huai to put the pot on the big stove, add water to soak in the pot, and process the jujube flesh that had been pitted.
Pour half a bag of white sugar into the sour jujube meat and stir evenly.
When she poured the sugar, Zhao Changying's eyes twitched.
"Gu Dong." Someone called outside.
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