Chapter 468 Mulberry Branch
Generally, it is best to eat the mulberry leaves within an hour after putting them on the food. If they are left for too long, they will become stale. Silkworms are oligophagous animals with huge appetites, and they can easily get sick if they eat stale mulberry leaves.
In particular, they digest food quickly and will poop after eating. If the slightly wilted mulberry leaves mixed with silkworm feces are eaten by silkworms, trouble will arise.
In mild cases, the patient will suffer from diarrhea, and in severe cases, the patient will die from diarrhea.
The two returned to the ground, had lunch, and when they came back, it was more than an hour after the feeding.
The mulberry leaves on both sides were almost eaten up. After inspection, it was found that there were a lot of mulberry leaf fragments left in the silkworm seats that were fed with only mulberry leaves. This situation is very common during normal feeding.
The silkworm seat next to it, which was placed directly with mulberry branches, gave Zhao Yeqing a little surprise.
"The silkworms will directly climb up to eat, so the dirty mulberry leaves that fall down are unlikely to be eaten, and there will be very few broken mulberry leaves that fall down. This method is good!"
She picked up a bare mulberry branch and checked to see that there were no silkworms on it before taking it down. The mulberry leaves on the branch had been eaten up.
Mu Xi studied the silkworm bed and said, "When the silkworms crawl onto the mulberry leaves to eat, the silkworm excrement falls under the silkworm bed. There are almost no broken leaves in the silkworm excrement, so it is much easier to collect it for medicinal purposes."
I just don’t know if there are enough mulberry trees for this method.
A grown-up mulberry tree is not much different from other trees. Its trunk becomes woody and rough, and only the newly grown branches remain as fresh and green as herbaceous plants.
The growth rate is also not much different. Compared with other trees that do not grow many branches and leaves in a year, the growth rate of the branches and leaves of the mulberry tree is considered fast, but the growth of the trunk is extremely slow, and it is rare to see a mulberry tree that grows very large.
The branch growth rate will be faster in spring. Now it is autumn and the temperature is not most suitable for the growth of mulberry trees. If we only use mulberry branches to raise silkworms, the mulberry trees at home may not be able to supply them.
Zhao Yeqing, who already had experience, was not impatient. At most he would just clean the silkworm beds a few more times. The more diligent he was, the less likely the silkworms would get sick.
Mu Xi picked a basket of oranges in the backyard and shouted to the basement, "Stop looking, come up and eat oranges."
The oranges during this period are sweet, and you don’t even need to open your mouth to taste them. You can tell by looking for worm holes that appear on one or two fruits from time to time. Don’t be afraid if there are worms, just throw away the ones that have been drilled by the worms, and the remaining orange segments can still be eaten.
In the past, Zhao Yeqing would throw away the entire fruit if he encountered this situation. He didn't feel bad about throwing away something he had bought with his own money, but he couldn't bear to throw away this one that he had grown with great difficulty, so he only threw away the ones that were bitten by insects.
Now I can better understand why my grandmother's generation was reluctant to throw things away. It's not just because they had experienced hunger, because since childhood I had heard the older generation constantly talking about how they had survived the "food crisis" by eating grass roots and tree bark, but also because the food was grown with great effort.
I have watched every fruit grow from its childhood, watered and fertilized it, and looked forward to it every day. I say it is food, but in fact it is more of a comfort in my lonely life.
There were so many ripe fruits that this year they had a good harvest as they wished. Zhao Yeqing made some of the oranges into citrus jam, which is not very suitable to be eaten with bread or steamed buns, but is more suitable as a beverage.
Add enough honey to the sauce in advance. When you want to drink citrus honey water in the future, just use a clean spoon to scoop a small spoonful from the glass jar, put it in a cup of water and shake it twice, and a cup of fruity drink is ready.
These days, I have been keeping an eye on the silkworm pods in the basement. The silkworms have grown up, and the soybeans that Zhao Yeqing had prepared to make sauce have also fermented.
Mu Xi picked the most mature watermelon. This watermelon had been kept for the purpose of making this sauce and was now a little overripe. It was very sweet, but the flesh had become soft. It was not very tasty as a fruit, but was very suitable for making sauce.
While Zhao Yeqing was making the melon and bean paste, Mu Xi was kneading dough to make steamed buns and noodles beside him.
The noodles made at home have been eaten up. This time, in addition to noodles, Mu Xi also wants to make some wontons.
Compared with noodles, Zhao Yeqing prefers small wontons with thin skin and meat filling. They are the kind with thin and transparent skin after being cooked, not the thick-skinned wontons in Sichuan and Chongqing.
It is still too heavy to eat thick-skinned wontons in the morning because the skin is relatively thick. It tastes better with sour soup or red oil, and is more suitable for eating during the day or at night.
The thin-skinned wontons only need to be boiled in water, and then soy sauce, chopped green onions, dried shrimps and sesame oil are placed at the bottom of the bowl. The hot water used to boil the wontons is then poured over to make wonton soup.
There weren't many shrimps left. They hadn't gone to the lake to catch shrimps this year. It had been two or three months since they went out to observe the grassland. Zhao Yeqing scooped out the fried sauce and put it in a bowl. He looked at the steamer with steaming buns and said,
"We went out for a while these two days. In the morning, we went to graze the cattle and sheep. We put the shrimp cages by the lake and came back. We haven't been there for so long. We are lucky that nothing happened to the cattle and sheep."
Mu Xi: "Actually, I was thinking of going to the village these two days to see if there is anything else that can be moved back, and to check the grassland. If we go out together, we might as well go and refill the gasoline."
It only takes an hour or so to drive around the meadow, and it only takes a dozen minutes to put the shrimp cages. Since you are out, just do the things that need to be done outside.
Zhao Yeqing thought it was a good idea: "Why don't we go in the morning? We can go out after we feed the silkworms."
"OK."
The steamed buns came out of the oven. The hot buns were the softest. Two kinds were made. Some of them were specially made into the thousand-layer buns in Shandong Province. They added old dough and folded layer by layer before rolling it into dough and putting it into the steamer.
This type of steamed bun requires more flour, and when you take it out it is heavier than ordinary steamed buns, and it feels extremely satisfying when you bite it.
(Pictures available here)
The steamed buns were a bit big, so the two of them only dared to share one, and had to save some room for other steamed buns.
Not to mention eating it with melon and bean sauce. Mu Xi originally thought it was a dark dish, but he didn't expect it to be so delicious.
It has a salty and fresh taste, very appetizing, and the watermelon in it adds a sweetness. This sweetness is different from the sauce with honey, white sugar and brown sugar. It is a very natural fruity sweetness, which makes the sauce with chili, onion and garlic, which should be very heavy, become a little refreshing.
There is no way that people who love sweet things would not like it. From the moment Mu Xi picked up the third steamed bun, Zhao Yeqing knew that the sauce was just to his liking. He originally wanted to eat some wontons, but now Zhao Yeqing had to enjoy it alone.
Noodles are filling, but Mu Xi rarely eats so much. Steamed buns are rather dry, so Zhao Yeqing poured him a cup of boiled and chilled goat milk that had been deodorized. The liquid soaked the steamed buns in his stomach, and Mu Xi was still full at eight o'clock in the evening.
I didn't even have dinner, but when I woke up the next morning I was craving this again.
The two of them ate steamed buns and dumplings. Zhao Yeqing planned to make some soy milk after she came back, which she could eat with the food during this period. She couldn't drink goat milk every day, which made her gain weight.
It's not entirely without benefits. By not going out to bask in the sun and drinking goat's milk at home, Zhao Yeqing has become one shade whiter than last year.
Not only did he become whiter, Zhao Yeqing also felt that he seemed to have become rounder. In the past two years, he has spent less time working in the fields, and a lot of labor has been replaced by mechanical equipment. In particular, cooking required chopping wood, but now it can be done by converting gasoline into electricity.
Now the flesh on my body is not so tight anymore, it feels soft and very nice to the touch.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
