Chapter 74 Processing Fruit Lu Qing carried away a bowl of dark, murky water…
As soon as the new day's broadcast began, a flood of viewers started asking what breakfast was for the day.
Even though this is already part of the daily routine after the sharing economy was launched, Lu Xuan still had a moment of doubt that he was supporting millions of lazy, unproductive people living off their parents.
Lu Xuan said, "Let's have something simple today: soy milk, fried dough sticks, tofu pudding, steamed buns, rice porridge, and cold dishes. Just eat whatever you like."
This is a typical northern breakfast menu, which was fine in itself, but Lu Xuan deliberately prepared two different flavors of tofu pudding sauce, sweet and savory, for the audience to choose from.
This really stirred up a hornet's nest, and the originally harmonious barrage of comments instantly became chaotic.
Tofu pudding should definitely be savory! Sweet tofu pudding is heresy!
[Bullshit! Savory tofu pudding is the real deal! Eating something sweet first thing in the morning is just cloying. Host, take away the sweet sauce immediately; the smell alone kills my appetite.]
The two groups not only argued about the taste of tofu pudding, but also about soy milk. The sweet faction firmly believed that sweet soy milk was the most delicious food, while the savory faction thought that breakfast should be savory and sweet was for afternoon tea!
They not only argued amongst themselves, but also tried to force Lu Xuan to take sides.
[Host, tell me, are you sweet or salty?]
[As long as you're a member of the "sex party," I'll be your forever die-hard fan!]
Lu Xuan: You're making a racket that's hurting my eyes.
He thought that these interstellar citizens didn't usually have the opportunity to eat natural food, so they probably wouldn't be arguing about whether it was salty or sweet. He didn't expect them to be arguing.
But if you ask him whether he prefers salty or sweet...
Lu Xuan casually picked up his portion of tofu pudding, poured a thick layer of savory sauce over it, and then poured a spoonful of sugar into the bowl of soy milk on his right.
"I only eat savory tofu pudding and drink sweet soy milk; anything else is heresy."
Salty or sweet, he's free spirit! He can change things flexibly according to his own preferences.
He insists on having scrambled eggs with tomatoes with sugar, and only likes the old-fashioned version of sweet and sour pork without tomato sauce. He only eats sweet red date zongzi and won't eat any meat zongzi or salted egg yolk zongzi.
If it's a dessert, he finds cakes and chocolates too greasy and prefers salty and spicy treats like fries and beef jerky.
In short, whether to eat sweet or savory food depends entirely on his personal taste.
But the audience clearly didn't buy it, and many staunch savory/sweet shippers broke down on the spot, cursing and swearing.
[You're such a player, wanting both ways! I never knew you were this kind of streamer! I misjudged you!]
[The streamer's taste is so bizarre, completely impossible to communicate with! Sweet things are clearly the best, and scientific data proves that eating sweets helps relieve stress and regulate mood; desserts are just the coolest!]
[The streamer is the real heretic!]
Lu Xuan didn't care whether they agreed or not; his taste had always been this way, and he wouldn't accept any questions!
·
The audience made a ruckus for quite a while, until all the gathering and hunting teams had set off, while Lu Xuan was still leisurely sitting and digesting his food, before their attention was diverted.
What are the host planning to do today?
[Following the previous pattern, they should be processing the fruit we received yesterday?]
Lu Xuan: "Pretty much. But we need to plant the trees we brought back first."
Yesterday he received more than 2,000 catties of fruit, and there is still a lot of fruit he bought in the prefectural city, but the fruit trees still need to be planted. You can never have too many supplies.
Seeing that Lu Xuan had taken out the fruit trees he had collected yesterday, Lei Yan walked over and said, "You want to plant trees? I'll find a few people to help."
Lu Xuan waved his hand, "No need, I can handle it myself."
He walked to the outer edge of the square next to the small cave, casually pulled out the trees that had been planted and piled them aside, put the fruit trees one by one into the pit, snapped his fingers, and the surrounding soil was carried back down by a gust of wind.
In a short while, a small orchard was created by human hands.
No, it's not entirely an orchard; he also planted Sichuan pepper and cinnamon.
His family has a lot of meat, and the consumption of spices is very high when processing meat. In a sense, spices are even scarcer than fruits and vegetables, so naturally the more the better.
After planting the trees, Lu Xuan channeled energy into each tree to minimize the impact of the transplant. Once he was done, the female helpers he had arranged to assist arrived.
Miao Jinfeng asked with a smile, "Are we going to deal with yesterday's fruit today? Your family suddenly received several thousand kilograms of fruit. Shouldn't you do something different? Have you thought about what you want to do?"
Lu Xuan nodded: "We discussed it yesterday. The main purpose is to dry fruit, make jam, canned goods, preserved fruit, candied fruit, and fruit wine."
The other women generally knew how to make it, but what were jam and canned goods?
Lu Xuan briefly explained the method.
The women listened with astonishment.
Miao Jinfeng exclaimed in amazement, "Where did you get this recipe? It sounds delicious! We never thought of making fruit like this before. Is the jam eaten dry or is there another way to enjoy it?"
Lu Qing and Lei Yan had only heard Lu Xuan mention it briefly yesterday, but they were also curious and started listening intently.
Lu Chen was even more of a fan. No child could resist sweets. Jam and canned goods all had sugar in them, which sounded very sweet. Lu Chen couldn't help but start drooling. He wanted to eat them!
Lu Xuan said, "You can eat it sandwiched in a steamed bun, use it as filling for dumplings, or just mix it with water to drink."
Miao Jinfeng's eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands, saying, "That sounds good. If it's delicious, I'll make some of the fruit my family was allocated."
Lu Xuan said, "After I finish making it today, I'll send some to my aunts/sisters-in-law to try. If they like it, I'll make more."
The other women were eager to try, saying, "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get started!"
"We've never made jam or canned goods before. If anything goes wrong during the process, please point it out immediately so as not to waste the fruit that was grown using magic."
"That's right!"
After setting aside several hundred kilograms for daily consumption, Lu Xuan quickly took out all the remaining fruit and divided it into several piles according to the different types to be processed.
Yesterday's harvest included apples, pears, and peaches, followed by wild cherries, apricots, and currants, with hawthorns, oranges, and dried plums being the least abundant.
The latter two were not recognized by the harvesting team at first, because these two fruits were not from the north at all.
Lu Xuan speculated that migratory birds might have accidentally brought the seeds over, and when they ate other fruits in the orchard, they expelled the seeds, which then took root and sprouted into a few plants.
The women quickly divided the work: first, they washed the fruit together, then peeled it; sliced the fruit for making dried fruit and preserves, cut the fruit into small pieces for making jam, fruit wine, and jars; dried the fruit that needed to be dried, and cooked the fruit that needed to be cooked with sugar.
Lu Xuan plans to make two kinds of fruit wine: one is a wine infused with baijiu (Chinese white liquor), and the other is a pure fermented fruit wine without any added alcohol. The latter has a lower alcohol content, making it suitable for women to drink. They can drink more without worrying about getting drunk, and the taste will be smoother and more delicious.
To process these fruits, Lu Xuan took out a large amount of white sugar and rock sugar.
Although Miao Jinfeng and the others were used to Lu Xuan's generosity, they still winced in distress when they learned that so much candy was needed. They were extremely careful when using it, afraid of accidentally spilling the candy, as they couldn't afford to pay for so much candy.
Other families in the village also received a lot of fruit yesterday. Some people received one or two hundred kilograms, which is not enough to eat in just a few days. Many people are worried about how to preserve so much fruit.
Upon smelling the sweet, fruity aroma wafting through the air, he immediately perked up and went to the Lu family to learn from their experience. He then made a snap decision to follow suit and dry the fruit to make candied fruit.
However, unlike Lu Xuan, they didn't have a lot of sugar, so their dried fruit could only be boiled in plain water. The taste was definitely not as good as the Lu family's, but they were satisfied as long as it could extend the shelf life.
Apart from the Lu family, almost no one else makes candied fruit.
What a joke! Making candied fruit would require so much honey; only Lu Xuan could afford to use dozens of kilograms.
Each family received one or two pounds, which they would use to make a drink or occasionally a honey-glazed meat dish. Candied fruit? Shaking my head, I thought it was too extravagant for ordinary people like us.
While everyone else was busy, Lu Xuan was not idle either.
Lu Qing and the others only took two-thirds of the fruit; the remaining third was in his hands.
You ask him what he's going to do? Of course, he's going to make juice.
It would be such a waste not to juice all this fruit.
As for what tools to use, I did get a juicer from yesterday's blind box, but a household juicer is just as inefficient as a meat grinder, so in the end I'll have to go with a 'human juicer'.
Wind-based superpowers are making a comeback!
The fruit is packed into boxes, sealed, and then stirred, stirred continuously.
Fruit is much easier to blend than meat. In no time, boxes of juice were ready. Finally, they were filtered through a clean burlap sack, and that was it!
Because of the precedent of mincing meat, this time the villagers and the audience were not too shocked... no, the villagers were still very shocked.
After all, the wild fruits they picked in the past were so few that they couldn't even eat them directly, let alone process them or think of juicing them.
When Zhang Chengming saw the hundreds of kilograms of fruit pulp left after juicing, his face contorted with heartache. "This is such a waste! We might as well have just eaten the fruit."
Lu Xuan poured him a glass of freshly squeezed juice, which the latter instinctively took and drank a sip.
Lu Xuan asked, "Is it good?"
Zhang Chengming nodded honestly, "It tastes good."
Lu Xuan: "So it's not a waste, as long as it tastes good, that's enough."
With his wood-based superpower, he could grow as much fruit as he wanted without worrying about wasting hundreds of pounds of fruit scraps.
Zhang Chengming: "..." Speechless.
Having magical powers is amazing, huh?
The audience felt sorry for the pile of fruit scraps, and many people even started eating them directly.
[The streamer eats fruit, we eat the pulp. The contrast is so stark, who's crying from the sourness? Oh, it's me. *crying emoji*]
[After enabling sharing, when the streamer eats fruit, we can all eat some too, or more accurately, we can eat both the fruit and the pulp. Thinking about it that way, doesn't it feel like a great deal?]
[...That makes sense, but something feels off.]
[Actually, we don't necessarily have to throw it away. Think about it: soybean pulp can be used to make soybean pulp pancakes, so maybe fruit pulp can be used to make fruit pulp pancakes too. They'd be sweet, and the taste should be pretty good.]
Lu Xuan poured Zhang Chengming a large bucket of juice, weighing about ten kilograms, and told him to share it with the other villagers. He added, "It can indeed be used to make fruit pulp cakes, or added to porridge to make fruit porridge. It's quite nutritious. But ultimately, it's not a mainstream food; it's just something to eat for the novelty."
Most of them will eventually be used as animal feed, including the fruit peels that were previously removed.
Except for orange peel, which can be dried and made into dried tangerine peel.
After squeezing all the juice, Lu Xuan was about to pour himself and Lu Chen a glass to further enhance the flavor when Lu Qing suddenly came over with a bowl of steaming, dark water, her expression conflicted.
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