Chapter 80 Sweet Jam
Similar to the previous method, after drying the green beans, we dried the chili peppers, cucumbers, and eggplants.
We didn't blanch the various leafy greens and freeze them because there wasn't enough space in the freezer.
Simply string them together and let them air dry in a cool, shady place until they become dried green vegetables.
In winter, boil it in hot water until it's soft and tender. You can eat it in hot pot or dip it in sauce; it's delicious both ways.
Apart from cabbage, radish, and pumpkin, almost half a month passed after all the other vegetables were harvested and processed.
The weather is starting to get a bit cooler; you can even wear long sleeves in the evening.
During the free time before harvesting cabbages and radishes, I plan to process more fruit to save for winter.
We picked the crabapples one box at a time and stored three boxes directly in the basement.
The rest were all sliced with a kitchen knife and hung out to dry in baskets.
Once dried, they become sweet and sour dried crabapples, with a unique flavor when chewed.
While I was drying the crabapples, I also plucked all the wild jujube trees on the mountain.
We brought the wild jujubes back and dried them, saving them to steam buns, make tea, or cook porridge in the winter.
After picking the wild dates, we picked pears.
The pears couldn't be bumped or knocked, so they were gently placed in boxes. A total of seven boxes were picked and stored in the basement.
When winter arrives and the temperature drops below zero, take the pears outside to freeze them, and you can eat frozen pears all winter long.
After all the fruit was processed, the grapes on the trellis at home ripened.
I couldn't wait to try a few a while ago, and they were so sour they made my teeth hurt.
Recently, the grape bunches have started to grow bigger and are hanging everywhere, looking incredibly beautiful and translucent.
No matter how beautiful they look, they are still food, and you have to pick them and eat them.
I picked out another purple one and tried it; it was sweet and sour, much better than before.
So recently, grapes have become the fruit I eat most often.
Fresh grapes are a rare treat, but they don't keep well, so eat as many as you can while they're available.
Each grape is round and large. Gently bite off a piece with your teeth, squeeze it with your two thumbs, and the soft grape flesh will all go into your mouth.
The grapes were fresh and juicy as soon as they entered my mouth, and the sweet and sour juice rushed around in my mouth, leaving my whole mouth and stomach feeling sweet and sour.
Even if it's delicious, I can't eat too much.
Half of the remaining grapes were dried into raisins in the back room, and the other half were made into grape jam.
I originally planned to make canned grapes, but I had limited ingredients and no preservatives, so the canned grapes would have a very short shelf life. Therefore, I gave up on that idea.
There's a tutorial in the book about grape jam; the process is simple, but it's a bit troublesome to prepare.
First, peel off the grape skins one by one, and also remove the grape seeds.
Then pour the grape pulp into the pot, add some white sugar, and start stirring and stir-frying.
Use a shovel to press down on it from time to time to crush the pulp a bit.
After frying for about an hour, it became increasingly thick and turned into grape jam.
Scald the empty canning jars with boiling water, drain them, and then pour the grape jam into the jars for storage.
I made four jars of grape jam, and the piece I tasted was full of grape aroma.
In winter, you can eat it like a sweet treat, dip it in other foods, such as steamed buns, or dilute it with water to make grape juice.
After collecting the items inside the yard, we also need to deal with those outside.
The soapberry trees at the entrance of the courtyard haven't grown to bear fruit yet, so there's no need to do anything about them.
Remove all the mint leaves and put them in the yard to dry. Once dried, store them in the basement.
After all the vegetables and fruits were cooked, the weather started to get cold.
I looked at the round, big watermelons on the ground and was puzzled.
We planted too much before, and started eating it when it was still hot. Even when it got cold, there was still a lot left.
Watermelons don't have a very long shelf life; they'll rot if you don't eat them for too long.
My daily fruit changed from grapes to watermelon.
Eat from morning till night, and show off whenever you're hungry.
After you've had your fill of showing off, use a juicer to make watermelon juice; it's refreshing and delicious.
Later, since we couldn't finish the last few, we decided to use the same method as before to make watermelon jam.
The only difference is that you need to remove the watermelon seeds, and you don't need to filter out the pulp when juicing.
Watermelon jam doesn't yield as much as grape jam, probably because watermelon has a higher water content.
Five large watermelons were used to make only two jars of jam.
Looking at the thick and tempting red jam, I took a small bite. It was very sweet, extremely sweet.
It's so sweet it's almost unbearable, like eating honey on its own. Maybe it could be used as filling for steamed buns.
I didn't throw away the watermelon rinds either. I used a kitchen knife to peel off the red flesh from the watermelon rinds I ate before and the ones I used to make watermelon juice and jam, leaving the white parts.
Wash it all clean, and peel off the outer layer of dark black hard skin.
Cut them into strips and dry them together in the sun.
Once dried, store them away. In winter, you can stew watermelon strips with meat, or soak them in water and make a cold salad.
Watermelon strips have a smooth texture and taste similar to winter melon, whether served cold or stewed, and are even tastier than winter melon.
As I was considering whether or not to bring the cabbage, radish, and pumpkin back to the farm, I suddenly remembered the hazelnut trees on the hill behind the farm.
It's time to harvest the hazelnuts.
It just so happens that Sang Biao has returned these past two days, so he took his younger brother Xiao Gua and Sang Biao to the back mountain to pick hazelnuts.
As long as it's not something I grew myself, and it's wild, I feel like I'm getting freebies, and I basically get more and more enthusiastic as I do it.
The autumn wind is bleak, and the scenery of the back mountain is somewhat desolate now.
The vast forests, green interspersed with patches of yellow, hint at the arrival of late autumn.
The hazelnut trees weren't tall; the tallest one only reached my head. The tender green leaves had some yellow spots on them.
The hazelnuts are within easy reach; picking them is a breeze.
I spent the whole day picking hazelnuts and harvested a huge sack. They'll taste delicious roasted in the winter.
After the hazelnuts were picked, the temperature continued to drop.
Finally, we've reached the last step: harvesting cabbages, radishes, and pumpkins.
This was the most tiring step, and it took almost 10 days to collect everything.
Pumpkins are easy to harvest; just pick them and bring them home. We harvested more than 30 pumpkins, each about the size of a small stool.
I definitely can't finish eating all these pumpkins. If I go to that exchange market in a while, I must bring back a few more to exchange for other things I don't have.
The exact number of cabbages harvested was impossible to count; all that was known was that they were piled up and covered the kitchen floor.
We harvested five sacks of radishes, but we still couldn't finish them all.
Next year when I plant vegetables, I must control the quantity; I can't possibly eat all of this by myself in the winter.
Before the frost, I went to the poplar grove to pick the last batch of mushrooms.
The mushrooms now are bigger and more plentiful than last time; in addition to white poplar mushrooms, there are also yellow poplar mushrooms.
However, I mainly harvested poplar mushrooms, and I got twice the amount as last time.
I don't really like eating yellow poplar mushrooms, so I only picked two baskets.
The busy autumn harvest kept me running around in circles, and after finishing everything, I was noticeably darker and thinner.
But it's okay, winter is coming soon, and I'll fatten myself up and look nice and plump during the winter.
Living alone, I always forget to check the date. Today, after finishing my work, I checked the date and it was already October 20th.
I've already decided to go to the exchange fair on October 30th.
Before that, we should go to town and get some furniture.
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