Chapter 105 The First Harvest of Early Summer: Frying Food, Selling Vegetables...
The departure of Dahuang left the house feeling like something was missing.
After school, when Neil doesn't hear the familiar barking, he often stares blankly at the doghouse, and tears involuntarily stream down his face.
Ray noticed Neil's change, and after about half a month, Ray and Neil discussed it and finally decided to dismantle the doghouse. They piled up a lot of spare stones in the place where the doghouse used to be.
The puppies are too small, so they're being kept in the living room for now.
For the first two days, they couldn't control their excretions and often urinated in the living room.
Later, Tata couldn't stand the two little slobs anymore and personally gave them a lecture. They finally changed their bad habit and learned to take care of things outside on their own.
This saved Ray and Neil a lot of trouble, and Ray rewarded Tata with a sumptuous meal.
Poor Tata, the puppies seemed to treat him like their foster mother, often following him around. When they saw Tata sleeping in the basket, they would huddle up next to him.
Tata was extremely annoyed and spent most of her time at the table and windowsill, occasionally staring at Ray and the puppies with a resentful look.
After another rain, the grains and vegetables in the fields and yards finally began to sprout.
The sprouted seeds grew taller day by day, increasing in height by seven or eight centimeters in less than half a month.
With longer days and shorter nights, the perceived temperature is getting higher and higher, and it's already early summer in the blink of an eye.
The vegetables in the field, such as cilantro, bok choy, radishes, and lettuce, are already ready to eat.
When planting, if too many seeds are sown unevenly, this is the perfect time to thin out the seedlings. Remove the densely growing vegetables so that all the nutrients are supplied to one or two of them, allowing them to grow better.
The Lai family grows enough vegetables that they can eat tender, firm greens for a while.
However, some vegetables, such as radishes, must be eaten when they are tender. Once they have grown and become spicier, they will not taste as good.
The soybean paste blocks, which had been air-dried for over a month, had dried out on the outside and developed a unique fermented aroma inside. With less rain during this period, it was the perfect time to make the paste.
Lai washed the four sauce cubes with clean water, then broke them into pieces and put them into the cleaned jar.
Then, a large amount of salt and boiled water are added, and a breathable linen cloth is placed on the lid of the short jar, thus completing the second stage of the process.
In the following time, Lei also needed to use tools to crush the small pieces of sauce and skim off the unpleasant black substance on the surface with a spoon.
Place the fermentation jar in the yard to ferment naturally. Be careful not to let rainwater get in or let small insects fly in. After a period of care and processing, you can enjoy the uniquely flavored homemade fermented soybean paste.
It was my first time making sauce, so I couldn't help but feel a little excited.
From this time of year until the fall, it's the perfect time for mushroom picking.
Early in the morning, you can see more than a dozen villagers picking the freshest mushrooms in the forest, taking advantage of the morning dew.
In the past, due to the lack of access to the mountain roads, fresh mushrooms would not be of good quality by the time they reached the town, and they were mostly sold as dried mushrooms. Now that there is a convenient tunnel, diligent villagers have started carrying freshly picked mushrooms to the town to sell.
On the village roads, you can often see groups of three or five villagers going to pick mushrooms in more distant places.
Neil, of course, was not to be outdone. Every few days, he would invite Helen and other friends to go fruit picking together.
Even if we don't sell it, it's more than enough to feed our own family.
Mushrooms are appearing more and more frequently on the Lei family's dining table.
Once again, he rendered lard, indulging in a rare luxury. Lai killed a red plover that didn't lay many eggs and made fried food for the foodies with fresh mushrooms and potato strips.
Wash the fresh mushrooms and tear them into strips, then marinate them with salt. After marinating, coat them with a batter made of flour, starch, quail eggs, and seasonings, and deep-fry them over low heat.
After frying, let it cool for a few minutes, then fry it again. Remove it, drain the oil, and sprinkle with a small amount of salt and chili powder.
Mushrooms fried this way are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with a taste that's just as good as fried meat.
In addition, Lei also fried bird meat into crispy pork, bird legs, and bird wings.
There wasn't enough time to process the potatoes, so I simply made them into regular French fries.
Fried mushrooms, fried meat, and French fries—deep-fried and served with homemade salt and pepper and citrus sauce—are just four ordinary street snacks in modern times.
But the children born and raised on the magical continent had never eaten these things before.
Lamb, Neil, and Luna, who had heard there was some new delicious food coming over for a free meal, ate non-stop.
Even so, they didn't forget to leave Lai a big chicken leg and a large plate of food.
They are all very well-mannered and considerate children.
The vegetables in the garden grew bigger and bigger, and the weeds in the field also started to grow wildly. We had just pulled the weeds out a few days ago, but they grew back in a few days, competing with the vegetable seedlings for nutrients in the soil.
To ensure vegetables grow well, timely weeding is essential. Otherwise, excessive weeds will steal all the nutrients, rendering the land useless for the rest of the year.
Lai was counting on two harvests of vegetables from his garden in the summer and fall to sell in town, so he took extra care of them.
For this purpose, he specially went to Temuqi to make two triangular hoes to hoe the ground and weed.
The bok choy in the yard has grown to about a hand's width tall; it's time to harvest it.
Ray, along with Lamb and Neil, thinned out the first seedlings in the bok choy and radish fields.
The picked bok choy and radish sprouts were carefully selected, their roots cut off, and tied into bundles. The bundles were neatly arranged in wide-mouthed baskets. After tidying them up, some mushrooms were collected in the village. The next morning, they were loaded onto a truck and taken to town to be sold.
Those that didn't look good were kept for our own consumption.
After some clearing, Lai's vegetable garden has expanded considerably, and they've managed to pick a basket of fresh vegetables here and there.
Although some people living in the town manage to find a small plot of land to grow vegetables, most of the time they still rely on the vegetable market for their daily food and drink.
Ordinary farmers wouldn't have the heart to pick and eat these newly sprouted vegetables right away; to find cheap vegetables at the market, you have to wait for the right time.
So Ray and Lamb got up early to go to the market, put a bunch of vegetables on the market, and soon a group of townspeople who came out to buy vegetables gathered around them.
To get a better price, Lai rented a stall with a table. It was really just a pair of wooden legs with a plank on top, but even that was much better than putting it directly on the ground.
The baby bok choy is crisp and tender, clean and bleached so that you can't see many insect holes.
The tender radish greens have a sweet radish aroma and a slightly spicy taste that is incredibly stimulating to the taste buds. They are perfect for making salads, or simply washed and drizzled with soy sauce and vinegar as a side dish to accompany rice.
The cilantro, just a bunch tall, doesn't have the same intense flavor as when it's fully ripe. Chopping it up and adding it to soup, or using it as a side dish, will create a unique synergy with the flavors of the broth and other vegetables.
There are also wild mushrooms that have been picked no more than three hours ago. They come in many varieties and have a delicious flavor, making them perfect for mushroom soup.
A half-pound bundle of greens is definitely enough to make a pot of vegetable soup, and the price isn't too expensive.
Those with more money bought several bundles without hesitation, and also picked up some mushrooms.
The family wasn't wealthy, but they hadn't eaten many green vegetables all winter, so they gritted their teeth and bought a bunch of bok choy.
Bok choy has many leaves, so if you eat it sparingly, you can still have enough for two meals.
Everyone rushed to pay, afraid that if they missed this opportunity, they wouldn't have another chance.
Although some elderly people complained to Ray and Lamb about how they were ruining the vegetable garden, it didn't stop the stall from selling like hotcakes.
After a morning market session, only three bundles of not-so-good-looking radishes and a small bunch of mushrooms remained after much picking and choosing. Lai sold them to an elderly woman whose clothes had been patched and mended many times, as a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Amidst the admiring and envious glances of the other stall owners, he left the market and took his place.
"Hey? Bro, there's still some food left under the cloth. I didn't see it earlier. Now that the stall is closed, it's not easy to sell it."
"Those are for giving away."
"oh oh."
Lai led Lamb through several streets to Mu's stall, but Mu wasn't there. Only Bai, who was tidying up the stall, and a little bear cub gnawing on jerky were there.
"Bai, where's Mu?"
Bai recognized Lai and greeted him politely.
"Mu has gone out on something, he'll be back in a bit, you can wait for him."
Bai is somewhat sensitive due to her own personality, and often keeps her eyes down, avoiding eye contact. It may seem a little impolite, but Lai doesn't mind.
He felt a familiar force on his leg, and looking down, he saw that the little bear cub had indeed hugged his leg.
Ray stroked his fluffy little head. The little bear cub had just shed his fur in early spring, and although his fur had lost the tight, dense feel of winter fur that allowed you to easily slip your hand inside, it was still very pleasant to touch.
Lamb stared in disbelief at the scene before him.
"Big Brother!"
"Good boy, you can talk now?"
Lai looked at Bai, and Bai nodded.
"He can already speak simple sentences."
"They've grown so fast."
"This is what orc cubs look like."
Bai still doesn't like making eye contact with others, but she always answers questions.
Do you need any more bones? We have plenty left today.
"No, my big dog at home died."
"Excuse me."
"It's alright, it's already very old."
Lai handed the prepared vegetables to Bai.
"These are the first batch of vegetables from our yard this year. I'm bringing some over for you to try."
"Thank you, thank you."
Bai wiped her hands clean on her apron and accepted the gift with both hands.
"We're just bringing you some side dishes today, nothing else. We have some things to take care of at home, so we'll be leaving now."
Ray picked up the bear cub and bounced it around in his arms. Before the cub could react, he quickly put it on the ground and fled with Lamb.
"Lay, wait a minute, I'll cut you a piece of meat to take back!"
"No, no, I'm leaving."
Ray turned around and waved, then saw the bear cub crawling toward him on all fours, so he quickened his pace.
"See you next time, Ray!"
"See you later!"
Realizing he could no longer catch up with the people, the little bear cub sat in the middle of the road and threw a tantrum, angrily slapping the ground with its two paws.
But the bear paws with their soft little pads failed to demonstrate the earth-shaking power of their ancestors, only raising two clouds of dust on the ground.
"Li, don't play in the dirt in the middle of the road."
Mu grabbed the bear cub by the scruff of his neck with one hand and carried him back to the stall.
“Mu, Lai came by and brought me some fresh vegetables. It looks like he was selling vegetables at the market this morning.”
"Thank you for your help, Lei. It just so happens that Li has been eating too much meat lately and is a bit constipated."
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Author's Note: Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants with nutrient solution between 23:47:00 on January 3, 2024 and 17:51:42 on January 9, 2024!
Thank you to the little angels who watered my plants with nutrient solution: 10 bottles repeatedly; ah~~ 5 bottles;
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
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