After dinner, Tian Mu and his friends went out to play again. Old Mrs. Tian boiled a small pot of paste in a clay pot. Tian Tian and Tian Yuan took the paste and went out to paste couplets.
Tian Lisong and Tian Lilin were also busy in the kitchen.
Old Mrs. Tian took out the meat that had been used to refine the oil, chopped it up and put it in a bowl. She also chopped up a bowl of sauerkraut stuffing and a small bowl of cabbage stuffing and put them all in the bowl for later use.
After everything was ready, everyone went to the kang to rest and chat.
After Tian Tian and Tian Yuan put up the couplets, Tian Yuan took Tian Tian to skate on the river.
Tian Tian sat on a sled made of a small stool. There was a rope in front of it, and Tian Yuan pulled Tian Tian forward.
Tian Tian doesn't have to do anything, just sit on a small stool.
Tian Yuan has trained in the army for a long time, so his lower body is stable. In addition, he grew up on ice, so he knows how to use his strength. He pulls Tian Tian and they move briskly. The small bench slides very fast on the ice, which is very exciting.
Tian Tian couldn't stop laughing. After playing for half a day, Tian Tian felt a stomach full of cold air and her voice became hoarse from laughing.
When it was time for lunch in the afternoon, the two of them went home with a heavy heart.
Old Mrs. Tian cut the jelly into pieces, placed them on a plate, and poured garlic sauce on them.
Old Mrs. Tian cooked the pig skin jelly very well. It was crystal clear and not turbid at all. All the pig skin was piled under the jelly.
Tian Tian picked up the jelly and took a bite. It was icy cold and had no fishy smell at all.
In addition, they had the cabbage stewed with tofu and vermicelli made by Old Mrs. Tian, and ate the vegetables rolled in pancakes. Tian Tian ate two large pancakes and several sticky bean buns wrapped in sticky cornmeal.
"Grandma! When can we eat meat?" Tian Mu asked while biting a pancake.
He had been staring at the piece of stewed pork belly in the kitchen for a long time. He thought he could eat it in the afternoon, but in the end there was not a single piece of meat on the table.
"We'll have it during the New Year's Eve dinner that night. If you want to eat it, I'll give you a small piece when I cut the meat later." said Old Mrs. Tian.
This year we only have that piece of pork and two pig's trotters at home. There are so many people in the family, and if we divide the meat into two meals, there won't be enough. It's just right to eat it at the New Year's Eve dinner.
Tian Mu nodded happily and agreed.
"Grandma, I want to eat meat too!" Tian Zhuo also shouted.
"Here's some for you! Each of you can have one!" Old Mrs. Tian said, "And you can eat it in the evening. Why are you in such a hurry?"
Old Mrs. Tian stewed a big pot of cabbage, vermicelli and frozen tofu at noon, but as there were many people at home, they finished all the food.
After dinner, everyone boiled water and washed dishes. It was already three o'clock when we finished.
Although Chinese New Year is tonight, Mrs. Tian means that if you can save some electricity, then do it. Don't wait until the middle of the night to make dumplings when it's completely dark. Make them while it's still light.
When it gets dark in the evening, cook the dumplings, stew the vegetables, and have a meal together.
After dinner, if you want to stay up to celebrate the New Year, you can go back to your room, and if you want to play together, you can go back to your room to play.
If you don’t want to stay up all night, just go back to your room and sleep, so as not to disturb anyone else.
Old Mrs. Tian prepared three kinds of dumpling fillings in total: one with sauerkraut and meat, one with shredded radish, and one with cabbage and meat.
Cabbage contains a lot of water, and it will easily release water if left for a long time after mixing. So Mrs. Tian didn't mix the cabbage stuffing first, but put it aside and prepare to mix it at the end.
Instead, first wrap the spicy sauerkraut and shredded pork fillings and the shredded radish fillings.
Old Mrs. Tian mixed all the remaining white flour at home, but felt that it might not be enough, so she added a little cornmeal.
Tian Tian watched Old Mrs. Tian shaking the flour bag, fearing that any flour would be wasted.
I sighed in my heart. Life was really not easy at that time. The most common thing we ate all year round was cornmeal. Although there was a lot of wheat harvested in the autumn, no one could eat flour to their heart's content.
Their family has eaten flour three times this year, which is considered good at this time.
One time was when Tian Yuanqiu ate noodles when he came back from harvest. Although everyone ate the noodles at that time, only Tian Yuan ate a bowl, and the rest of the people each tasted a bite or two.
Another time was when Old Mrs. Tian made dumplings when Tian Yuan passed away. However, at that time they were vegetable dumplings made with cornmeal. She poured a little flour into them to increase the extensibility of the flour, and didn't use much flour.
This will be the last time. It’s not too much to have a meal of white flour dumplings during the New Year. The dumplings made in this way will be enough for everyone to eat.
Old Mrs. Tian poured out all the flour, and Lin Meiyu took the dough aside to knead it. Old Mrs. Tian took out the piece of pork belly that she had boiled yesterday and sliced it into slices.
Because she had promised Tian Mu and Tian Zhuo before, Old Lady Tian gave them two slices. They happily held up the piece of meat, ate it in small bites, and then went to the east room to play.
Old Mrs. Tian wanted to give Tian Tian a piece, but Tian Tian shook her head and said no. Although the piece of meat was cooked, it had been cold after being left in the house overnight, and there was still a lot of fat on it.
It’s not that Tian Tian can’t eat fatty meat, but when it’s stewed for too long, the fat becomes melted, and Tian Tian really likes to eat it.
But for something like yesterday where the meat was just cooked through and served cold without any seasoning, Tian Tian found it hard to accept.
When Old Mrs. Tian saw that Tian Tian didn't want to eat, she put all the cut pork into the sauerkraut pot.
The pork, which weighed less than three pounds, shrunk a lot after being stewed, but the quantity was still not small and filled the sauerkraut pot.
After putting the meat into the pot, Old Mrs. Tian covered it with a lid and slowly stewed it over the brazier.
Then I washed my hands and went into the house to make dumplings.
Except for Tian Mu and Tian Zhuo who were too young, everyone else in their family knew how to make dumplings, and they did it quickly and well.
Tian Tian felt a little envious when she saw them wrapping a plump yellow dumpling with just the palm of their hand.
When making dumplings, she can only pinch them little by little, and she doesn't know any other tricks.
She had just tried to pinch the dumpling with her thumb and index finger, but the filling squeezed out and she wasted a piece of dumpling wrapper. After patching up the dumpling, she ended up making a particularly ugly dumpling, so Tian Tian gave up.
The whole family joined in making dumplings and soon finished making the dumplings with sauerkraut and shredded radish fillings. Lin Meiyu and Chen Guihua placed the dumplings on the lid and took them outside to freeze. Grandma Tian went to the fields to season the cabbage filling, Tian Lisong pinched the dough and made the skins, and Tian Lilin went to the fields to boil water to prepare the dumplings.
The family members divided the work and cooperated, and soon the dumplings that filled the table were replaced by dough skins. Dumplings were put into the pot one by one, and cabbage stuffing was also served.
Tian Tian hurried to start making dumplings.
There is not much cabbage filling, just a small pot, and it is quickly finished when everyone helps to wrap it.
At this time, Lin Meiyu also brought up a plate of vegetarian dumplings. Vegetarian dumplings cook quickly and can be eaten as soon as they float up.
I tried both kinds of fillings from Tian Tian, and my favorite is the one with shredded radish. It tastes fresh and sweet, and it tastes good even without dipping it in garlic sauce.
The sauerkraut filling tastes more fragrant because it has a lot of meat in it, but the sauerkraut pickled by Grandma Tian is too tangy and tastes too sour, so Tian Tian doesn’t like it.
After the dumplings were cooked, it was completely dark outside, and Grandma Tian began to prepare the New Year's Eve dinner. She steamed the pig's trotters that had been boiled in advance in a pot, then broke them apart and put them on a plate, so that she could eat them directly with garlic sauce.
The sauerkraut pot had been stewing for an entire afternoon and was finally ready. Tian Lisong directly brought the brazier to the kang and put the table on top of the brazier.
This kind of table is a whole round wooden board with a hole in the middle. It can be directly put on the brazier, and the extra circle of wood on the edge can be used to place things like a normal table.
Although the New Year's Eve dinner this year was not very sumptuous, there was only a pot of sauerkraut, dumplings, jelly, pig's trotters, and a plate of fried fruits, and nothing else.
But it's also quite happy for the whole family to sit together around the table, squeezed together.
The whole family ate everything on the table cleanly, and after the meal, everyone picked up the dishes and washed them clean.
Old Mrs. Tian was busy making the bed and going to bed. She was old now and couldn't stay up late. She used to take a nap during dinner and then get up around eleven o'clock when it was time for the New Year's Eve dinner to prepare dinner.
This year, his family didn't have much food, so they decided not to have the New Year's Eve dinner. If anyone was hungry, they could cook some dumplings for themselves.
Old Mrs. Tian was sleeping in this room, while Lin Meiyu, Chen Guihua, and Tian Yuan went to the room at the west end to play poker.
Tian Zhuo and Tian Mu were playing in the cabin. Tian Tian was so sleepy that she went back to the cabin to sleep.
The next morning, Tian Tian was awakened by the sound of firecrackers. She opened her eyes and could see a faint light coming through the oil paper. It was daybreak outside.
Tian Tian yawned and stayed in bed for a while. Feeling the room getting colder, she sat up and took out the clothes and pants that she had placed under the mattress to keep warm before going to bed last night and put them on.
After putting it on, she folded the quilt and went downstairs to look at the fire in the stove.
Sure enough, the two large pieces of firewood that were added before going to bed last night had already lit, and there were still tiny sparks left in the stove pit.
While there was still a little fire, Tian Tian stuffed a handful of pine needles into the stove. After waiting for a while, the fire in the stove pit began to roar. Tian Tian stuffed some more firewood into it and left it alone.
When I went out, I saw her two younger brothers covering their ears and shouting excitedly amid the sound of firecrackers.
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