Chapter 41 Preparing for Winter
Xie Wanniang also bought four bars of fragrant soap, one for each of the four of them.
She bought two kilograms of toilet paper, which will last her a long time at home.
Salt was purchased in accordance with the maximum allowable purchase limit per person, enough for four people: herself, Jiang Yuan, Hao Yu, and Xiao Yang.
When they arrived at the grain shop, Xie Wanniang originally wanted to take advantage of the new grain harvest to buy more of various grains, but Jiang Yuan stopped her.
He told Xie Wanniang that the two storage rooms in the house where grain was stored had been filled with the rent collected by Hao Yu, and there was really no place to store any more grain.
Jiang Yuan didn't want Xie Wanniang to spend too much money, while Xie Wanniang didn't want to cause Hao Yu and Jiang Yuan any more trouble. After discussing it back and forth, they finally only bought rice and peanuts that they didn't have at home.
Upon returning to the village from town, the first thing Xie Wanniang did was render lard to braise pork, ribs, pig heart, and pig liver.
The temperature in Tang County has now dropped below ten degrees Celsius, so there's no problem eating braised meat for several days in a row. Otherwise, Xie Wan's mother wouldn't have dared to buy so much meat at once.
After rendering the lard, put it into a jar. Give some of the cracklings to everyone, sprinkle them with brown sugar, and eat them while they're hot. Put the rest in a large bowl and save it to make crackling and cabbage buns for tomorrow.
The pork, ribs, pork heart, and pork liver continue to simmer over low heat until they are thoroughly flavorful.
The duck is still alive; we can keep it for a few days before killing and eating it.
Brown sugar and eggs are stored in the cupboard, and can be taken out and eaten whenever needed.
For lunch, Xie Wanniang made multigrain noodles. Steamed eggplant cubes and braised meat sauce were poured over the noodles, and the taste was incredibly tempting.
After everyone finished lunch, Xie Wanniang distributed the face cream to everyone, and then took the new fabric, yarn, cotton, and the embroidery fabric and silk thread that Qin Niangzi had provided for her, and went back to her room to get busy.
She first made a thin cotton coat for herself and Xiaoyang. Neither of them had one, and since the temperature dropped, they had been wearing two or three layers of clothing to keep warm. They weren't cold anymore, but it was still quite inconvenient to move around.
Most importantly, they didn't have any more clothes to change into!
After finishing the thin cotton-padded clothes for the two of them, Xie Wanniang made thick cotton-padded clothes for all four people in the family.
The thick cotton-padded coats that Hao Yu and Jiang Yuan wore were sewn by Jiang Yuan's adoptive mother when she was still alive. Firstly, they had been worn for a long time, and secondly, there was not much cotton used at the time, so the coats were no longer very warm.
Winters in this era were much harder to endure than the harsh winters of northern China that Xie Wanniang experienced in modern times. In order to ensure that everyone could have a relatively warm winter, Xie Wanniang decided to make new cotton-padded clothes for the two of them.
As for their old cotton-padded clothes, he planned to keep Jiang Yuan's as a memento, while he gave Hao Yu's to an old man living alone in the village.
The old man's relatives all died during the war, and he is now being cared for by his two cousins in turns.
Of course, this so-called care was not the kind of meticulous care; they simply delivered a bundle of firewood and carried a load of water for the old man every day.
The old man had his own house and land, and he could cook, but like most families in the village, he lived a very poor life.
Although the cotton-padded coat that Hao Yu sent was old, it was still far better than the old man's own so-called cotton-padded coat, which he had worn for five or six years and was made of little cotton and stiff material with mostly willow catkins filling.
Not only was the old man overjoyed to receive the clothes, but even some villagers who learned about it by chance cast envious glances at him because of the cotton-padded coat.
***
While Xie Wanniang was busy sewing cotton-padded clothes and completing embroidery orders, Jiang Yuan and Xiao Yang were also busy. One of them went into the mountains to hunt and also chopped firewood, and collected nuts, wild fruits and mushrooms. The other stayed at home to collect the dried vegetables such as string beans, dried eggplant, and bok choy that they had dried in their spare time before winter storage, and made good preparations for winter.
Wang Xiaozhi also took some time to come here; she came to help Xie Wanniang and the others pickle vegetables and make sauerkraut.
Hao Yu and Jiang Yuan couldn't do these things, and Wang Xiaozhi wasn't sure if Xie Wanniang could, so she simply took the initiative to come and help.
Reminded by her, Xie Wanniang realized that she had been so engrossed in making money that she had completely forgotten about such an important matter.
Sauerkraut! It's sauerkraut! It's her favorite sauerkraut!
With her mouth watering, Xie Wanniang decisively put down her needlework, rolled up her sleeves, and began to work hard with Wang Xiaozhi to harvest cabbages and pickle vegetables.
Thanks to Xie Wanniang's awareness of stockpiling, they had enough coarse salt stored up, but after Jiang Yuan returned, Xie Wanniang reminded him to continue buying salt.
Taking advantage of the fine weather, Xie Wanniang, Wang Xiaozhi, and Xiaoyang carefully dug out all the short, stubby cabbages from the vegetable garden.
The first step after digging up the Chinese cabbage is to clean the soil around the roots, remove old and yellow leaves, as well as damaged or pest-infested leaves that are not completely intact. Then, depending on the intended use, some of the cabbages are dried slightly in the sun and sent to the cellar for storage, while others, which are used to pickle sauerkraut, need to be dried in the sun for 2-3 days to soften the cabbage leaves slightly.
This reduces the moisture content of the cabbage, making it less likely to rot during the pickling process, and also facilitates subsequent operations.
While the cabbages were drying, Xie Wanniang not only had Jiang Yuan prepare the coarse salt, water, and clean jars and vats needed for pickling sauerkraut and salted vegetables, but she also harvested all the winter-stored vegetables from the garden, including mustard greens, white radishes, carrots, squash, winter melons, and eggplants, together with Wang Xiaozhi and Xiaoyang.
They set aside the mustard tubers and mustard greens intended for pickling, along with a small portion of white radishes and carrots. The rest of the winter storage vegetables were also sent to the cellar for proper storage by Xie Wanniang and the others.
Because there was a large quantity of mustard tubers and they required a long pickling time, Xie Wanniang and the others used a separate large vat for pickling them.
The tender mustard greens are pickled, while the older ones are cooked, chopped, and used as filling with pork.
It just so happens that Wang Xiaozhi has been helping Xie Wanniang these days, and Xie Wanniang, in order to thank her, cooks her different delicious dishes every day.
This meal consists of steamed buns, the next of dumplings, and the day after that, wontons in bone broth. The following day, you can have stuffed pancakes, pan-fried dumplings, potstickers, or vegetable pancakes.
If you've tried all of these, then you can still have noodles, flatbread, cat's ear noodles, and dumpling soup. Mustard greens with minced meat sauce would also be a delicious topping.
Alternatively, you can mix it with tofu and fried vegetarian meatballs, and use it with eggs and sliced meat to make soup, or simply stir-fry it with minced meat to make a side dish.
She guarantees that once the mustard greens have passed through her hands, they will taste incredibly delicious, no matter how she prepares them.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com