Chapter 104 (Red Bean and Barley Porridge...)
The old emperor did not die immediately after all.
Under the threat of Concubine Lu, the entire Imperial Hospital tried its best to treat the old emperor. Although the old emperor is not living comfortably now, he is still alive and conscious. He can even make a fuss at the Dali Temple. Why haven't they caught the murderer who hurt his son yet?
Yan Qiushu felt a little regretful when she heard the news, but she soon stopped paying attention to it. Instead, she stared at the fire in the pot in front of her. After confirming that the time was up, she poured the soup in the pot into the bowl.
At first smell, the soup smells meaty and very pleasant, but if you smell it carefully, you can smell a strong bitter taste.
This is the medicinal tonic soup made by Yan Qiushu. Xiao Huaiting has been drinking it for two days. His complexion has visibly improved and his wounds have healed quickly. However, the soup tastes weird.
It tastes good, yes, it is light and salty, but there is always a strange bitter taste that offsets all its goodness, making people who drink it feel uncomfortable in their mouths.
After all, it is a medicinal food, and Chinese medicinal ingredients rarely taste good.
Yan Qiushu's soup was ready, so she brought it in first and let Xiao Huaiting drink it, and then she went to deal with the rest of the dishes.
Under normal circumstances, Xiao Huaiting would definitely be impatient, but at this time, he frowned and did not dare to take the bowl of soup.
"Take it!" Yan Qiushu scolded him when she saw him like this.
The two of them had been together day and night for two days. At night, they slept on one couch and one bed respectively. With the curtain drawn, they were like two roommates who did not interfere with each other. However, they were always facing each other during the day. They were much more familiar with each other than before, when they were a little unfamiliar.
But because of this, Yan Qiushu's true personality was gradually exposed. She was not as introverted and shy as everyone thought. On the contrary, she was quite scary when she was angry.
Xiao Huaiting was scolded, but he didn't dare to hesitate. He picked up the bowl and wanted to pour it into his mouth.
"Wait for it to cool down for a while!" Yan Qiushu quickly stopped him.
"Oh." Xiao Huaiting held it obediently and blew on it.
Seeing that he didn't drink it immediately, Yan Qiushu turned around and went out to complete the final steps of lunch. Shui Yu had already helped with the previous steps.
As soon as she left, Xiao Huaiting immediately placed the soup bowl on the ice bucket in the room, and touched the ice with his hands. When his hands were cold, he touched the wall of the bowl to cool it down faster.
Sure enough, his approach was correct. After a while, the temperature of the hot soup dropped a lot.
Xiao Huaiting tasted it and after accepting it, he pinched his nose and gulped it down, then took two big gulps of tea, trying to wipe away the strange taste in his mouth. However, this movement was a bit too big, causing the wounds on his body to hurt. He didn't dare to scream, so he could only vent his anger by grinning.
When Yan Qiushu brought in the dishes, she saw that the soup bowl and tea bowl were empty. She glanced at the person in front of her.
Xiao Huaiting looked at her and smiled: "What is Ah Shu doing today?"
Yan Qiushu put down the bowl and let him look at it himself: "There is another dish, you eat it first."
Xiao Huaiting shook his head and continued to wait for her.
When Yan Qiushu came in again, all the dishes were ready. Today's portions were stir-fried spinach, cumin lamb, and red bean and barley porridge. After putting everything down, she watched Xiao Huaiting's expression change from frowning to joy and then to bitter face.
He doesn't like eating vegetables or sweet things.
But spinach and porridge just hit his sore spot. Even if Yan Qiushu's cooking skills were improved, it wouldn't change. Having something he disliked become his staple food was such a pain...
Yan Qiushu did it on purpose. In fact, there were other blood-replenishing dishes to choose from. However, she found it very interesting to see Xiao Huaiting's expression changing these two days.
For example, now, as she watched, she began to smile secretly.
Xiao Huaiting didn't seem to notice it either. He sighed silently and obediently picked up his chopsticks to prepare to eat.
Yan Qiushu asked casually, "You don't seem to like the food these past two days?"
"No?" Xiao Huaiting quickly denied it, picked up a piece of spinach with chopsticks and put it in his mouth. He obviously didn't like it, so he quickly took two bites and swallowed it, but he still showed the expression of tasting delicious food and nodded with satisfaction: "Well, it's really delicious. Everything you cook is delicious!"
Yan Qiushu smiled and picked up some mutton for him: "Then you should eat more of this."
"Hmm!" Xiao Huaiting nodded quickly and put the mutton into his mouth. The mutton seemed to be roasted, soft and tender, full of cumin flavor, with a little bit of almost imperceptible spiciness, and just the right amount of saltiness. Compared with other dishes in the usual time, it was simply stunning!
Seeing this, Yan Qiushu smiled with satisfaction and took a sip of porridge from the bowl.
She didn't actually add sugar to the red bean and barley porridge, but it seemed to have a sweet, light taste, and it was obviously very delicious.
After taking a sip of porridge and eating a mouthful of spinach, Yan Qiushu felt that the taste was a little bland in her mouth, so she picked up some spicy beef sauce.
She also made some sauce when she was free, but it was summer now, so she didn't make much. She could only eat a small plate at a time, and she couldn't leave any leftovers, otherwise they would go bad.
Although it is cold in winter, food cooked in winter is difficult to spoil. This is a good advantage of a natural refrigerator. She is looking forward to the arrival of winter.
Last year at the Xiao family, she forgot to make sausages, but unfortunately for this world, nothing happened to the sausages yet.
sausage...
Yan Qiushu remembered something and was about to speak when she saw Xiao Huaiting reaching out his chopsticks towards the beef sauce.
She didn't move, just glanced over lightly.
He immediately turned his chopsticks around and picked up a piece of diced mutton. He took a bite and quickly scooped a mouthful of red bean and barley porridge into his mouth, barely covering up the faint sweetness of the porridge. He then smiled faintly at Yan Qiushu, "This porridge is delicious too!"
Yan Qiushu smiled and stopped teasing him. She said, "If there is meat that can be preserved for a long time, can your army take it with them if they go out to fight in winter?"
"As long as the military pay is sufficient," Xiao Huaiting perked up when he mentioned this. "In winter, we can carry more things than at other times, but meat still spoils easily. After all, we have to sleep outdoors..."
Yan Qiushu understood. She remembered that there was pickled meat, but pickling meat required a lot of salt, which was quite expensive in ancient times. If it was used to make pickled meat for military pay, it would definitely cost a lot.
It’s different with sausages. If you add more seasonings inside, you don’t need that much salt. The thin outer casing can block a lot of bacteria. You can just steam it when you need to eat it. When you don’t want to eat it, you can keep it for a long time. As long as it’s not summer, it won’t go bad so quickly.
Yan Qiushu thought of it and told him, "There's a kind of food called sausage that doesn't require a lot of salt. It uses pig intestines, which are washed into a thin layer, and then the meat is stuffed in. The steps are a bit complicated, but it can be stored for a long time after it's made..."
Xiao Huaiting's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he looked forward to it: "Thank you, Ah Shu, for telling me."
"But we can't make it now. We have to wait until it's cooler." Yan Qiushu pursed her lips and smiled. Seeing him so happy, she couldn't bear to dampen his confidence. She thought of something else: "There's also hot pot base. It only requires butter and various chili spices. If you make it, when there's nothing to eat in the barracks, adding some to it and cooking cabbage will be delicious..."
Anyway, for her own army, chili peppers were still a new product in this era, but if the army needed them, she would just send them over and leave the seeds.
If you reduce the amount of other seasonings a little, you can make a similar hot pot base. The taste of noodles cooked with it is much better than noodles cooked with plain water, and it also contains oil and water.
Xiao Huaiting listened quietly, his heart filled with joy.
As a general who receives military pay all year round, the desire to feed his soldiers better made him think about whether he could see the soldiers when he heard these fantasies.
As he thought about it, he felt the wound on his back itchy.
Speaking of which, after taking some medicine, consuming medicinal food and some food tonic prescriptions in the past two days, the wounds on his body healed much faster than before. It's really amazing!
The wound had only just begun to heal, so it was time for him to go.
After Yan Qiushu finished speaking, she saw the person in front of her gulp down the red bean and barley porridge that she had been drinking all night. She seemed to feel that her mouth was too sweet, so she quickly ate several mouthfuls of cumin lamb grains, relying on this taste to suppress the sweetness in her mouth.
He wiped his mouth, smiled, and said, "I have to leave tonight."
"Ah?" Yan Qiushu blinked and looked at the person in front of her, not reacting for a moment.
As usual, Xiao Huaiting rubbed the top of her head with his right hand and said softly, "I still have a mission to complete. I can't be out for too long, otherwise they will get suspicious."
Yan Qiushu pursed her lips, then quickly adjusted her attitude and smiled: "Well, then you should eat more."
"When I get back, I'll ask my mother to come over to discuss the wedding date, okay?"
Yan Qiushu nodded and smiled: "Okay."
That night fell.
Xiao Huaiting just left. Even though he was injured, he opened the door and left quietly.
Yan Qiushu didn't sleep well that night. She didn't draw the curtains on the bed and lay on her side, looking at the soft couch.
It was not until she felt sleepy that her eyes slowly closed. When she woke up again, it was already three quarters past three in the morning, which was considered very late for her to get up.
The ice in the room had almost melted, and the temperature in late July was still a bit warm. She lazily lay in bed, not wanting to get up until Shui Xuan came running over excitedly. She didn't come in directly, but knocked on the door: "Miss! Several young masters and young ladies are here, and they brought a lot of potatoes!"
Potato? !
Yan Qiushu jumped up from the bed and put on her shoes incorrectly because of her excitement.
After finally getting out, Shui Yu was also full of joy: "I'll go get some water for the girl, so she can wash up quickly..."
"Well, go quickly!" Yan Qiushu also urged, looking forward to seeing how many potatoes there would be.
King Huai brought back a lot of potatoes. Although many of them were distributed to the major families, many potatoes were kept as seeds. Moreover, if all goes well, each potato eye can grow into many potatoes, just like peanuts, one seed can grow into a bunch of peanuts.
The potato growth cycle is two to three months, and now it is exactly two and a half months, so the harvest is also normal. This time, these children can bring it here, so the quantity is definitely not small.
She can also keep some for seeds!
Calculating it, now it's the end of July, and by the end of September or early October, we can still harvest one crop. If we want to plant in October, we have to build a greenhouse so that we can plant another crop of peppers...
Yan Qiushu thought about a lot of things in the short time she was washing. After wiping her face, she couldn't wait to go to the outer courtyard.
When she arrived at the outer yard, she saw a truckload of potatoes in sacks in the yard. She was so surprised that she quickened her pace.
At the same time, Dongdong, who had just arrived and was observing the place with curiosity, also saw Yan Qiushu. His eyes lit up and he rushed over happily: "Sister Shu!"
But he saw his sister A Shu passing by him and pounced on the potatoes: "So many potatoes!!!"
Dongdong: “…”
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