The village chief is so stingy! He can't bear to feed them meat, and they don't even get to drink good water from their space. They've started shedding clumps of fur!
The next day, before dawn, Chen Hong got up, first preparing a large bowl of dough, and then went to the backyard to cut a basket of chives.
Back in the kitchen, I made dumplings, added cooking wine, scallions, ginger, and five-spice powder to the meat filling, and quickly picked the chives, washed them, and drained them.
Clean the large pot, add water, and place a steamer basket on top. Chop the chives and mix them with the filling.
It's hot, so the dough rose very quickly. It has now turned into honeycomb-like little bubbles and has increased in size three times.
Scoop out a piece of dough with your hand, place it on a cutting board, sprinkle flour on it, knead to release the air, cut it into small pieces, roll them out into wrappers, put the filling in, and start making buns.
As you wrap the buns, place them on the steamer, filling it to the brim. Once one steamer is full, place another steamer on top and continue wrapping.
It took three layers of steamer baskets to wrap all the dough and filling.
Firewood was placed on the stove to start a fire in the pot, and Chen Hong steamed more than a hundred large buns.
After the steamed buns were cooked and taken out of the pot, Chen Hong used the embers from the stove to cook a large pot of mung bean and millet porridge.
The porridge was ready, and it was already dawn. The village chief called to wake Chen Hong up.
"Uncle, come to the backyard for dinner. I got up a long time ago and the food is ready."
I made a lot of mung bean and millet porridge and steamed pork and chive buns. Invite all the villagers who come to work in the village to come and eat!
The village chief was a little confused when he heard this. He peeked out the window and saw that the sky was still gray and not fully bright. He then looked at the large clock on the wall and saw that it was only five o'clock.
"What time did you get up? You didn't sleep all night, did you? You really don't need to work so hard. The villagers eat breakfast at their own homes; we don't provide breakfast for them."
In the morning, it's just the ten or so of us. We just buy some steamed buns, cook some porridge, and slice some pickled vegetables.
There's no need to prepare such complicated and troublesome meals. For lunch, you can just stir-fry two or three large pots of vegetables, and make some steamed buns, rice, or pancakes.
This is how everyone eats during the busy farming season; if you want something better, you prepare it during the off-season.
Chen Hong: "It's okay, Uncle. I got up at three o'clock. I've already done the work. You can call the people who did the work and tell them to come and eat. It's just a meal."
After hanging up the phone, Chen Hong took out the boiled eggs and salted duck eggs from the steel pot, rinsed them with cold water, and put them into a porcelain basin.
I washed and finely shredded a few more pickled vegetables, added chili shreds, scallion shreds, ginger shreds and cilantro chopped, poured in light soy sauce, aged vinegar and sesame oil and mixed the pickled vegetables in a bowl.
They picked up a bamboo basket full of steamed buns and carried it into the dining room, then ladled mung bean porridge into a basin and served it on the table.
Pickled vegetables, eggs, salted duck eggs, chopsticks, and bowls were all laid out on the table, just waiting for the workers to come and eat.
Suddenly, I realized that the gate hadn't been opened yet! So I ran to open the big iron gate, called Yu Yang to get up and go for a run, and also called Xiao Hao and Wang Xin to come for dinner.
The yard was cleared, and I fed the chickens, ducks, and dogs. There wasn't a moment of free time.
Before six o'clock, the village chief, Uncle Erhu, and Xiaofeng arrived with the children. A little while later, Xiaohao's mother and Wang Xin's mother also arrived.
Once everyone arrived, they started eating. Just then, Yu Yang, Xiao Hao, and Wang Xin returned from their run and joined them at the table for dinner.
They hadn't even finished half of the steamed buns when they asked Xiao Hao's mother to take fifteen steamed buns and five salted duck eggs to Aunt Guo, Aunt Erhu, and Yang Xiaofeng in the front yard.
The weather was perfect today; there was a breeze last night and no dew this morning, so everyone went to the fields at 6:30.
With so many people, all the pears were picked in one morning. At nine o'clock, two medium-sized trucks from the city's transportation company arrived.
It took two hours to load, and a total of 32,000 jin of pears were hauled away.
When the bus departed, Chen Hong also packed each driver a basket of pears and a dozen or so steamed buns and boiled eggs.
As soon as the truck departed, Chen Hong immediately called Director Guan and Director Jin to tell them to prepare to receive the goods.
He also had the village chief contact fruit merchants in the city and sell him 5,000 catties of pears.
There were still seven or eight thousand catties left, so Chen Hong had them all taken back to the hotel. The villagers who came to help each received ten catties of pears and one hundred and fifty yuan.
At noon, four tables were set up in the backyard, where Chen Hong and Xiao Hao's mother cooked four large pots of stew.
There was a pot of pork ribs stewed with green beans, a pot of braised mackerel, a pot of mushroom stewed with chicken pieces, a pot of braised pork, and a large pot of rockfish soup.
The leftover steamed buns from this morning weren't enough, so I bought fifty steamed breads.
After a busy morning, everyone was hungry, and they wolfed down their food, finishing every last bite.
Besides the remaining twenty-odd steamed buns, we ate everything, not to mention the vegetables, even the leftover boiled eggs and salted duck eggs mixed with pickled vegetables from the morning.
After the meal, not only did the villagers leave, but Chen Hong and her mother also had to go.
They had booked a flight for 3 p.m. After putting down their meals, the village chief packed them up and put them in the car, then had Xiaofeng take them to the airport.
Looking back at the mess in the yard, it was clear that the village chief and the others would have to clean it up.
Chen Hong looked back longingly ahead, and said to Xiao Feng with a guilty expression:
"We're in a rush, so we've left all the housework to the elderly and you all."
Brother Xiaofeng, while I'm away, since you're young, I'll have to trouble you to take care of things at home.
As Xiao Feng drove, he said, "Sister Chen Hong, don't be so polite with me."
We're all family here! You've helped us a lot. If it weren't for you pulling us along, how could we earn money from home?
You don't care about spending so much money, but we don't have any. What's wrong with us contributing our labor?
Isn't this all just what we should and should do?
By the way, Sister Chen Hong, the corn and peanuts are almost ripe and should be ready to harvest by next week at the latest.
If the weather is bad, we can still harvest in two or three days, so you don't need to keep running back and forth. Several families can work together, and we can finish harvesting in four or five days.
Chen Hong wasn't in much spirits either; she had come all this way, but all her time had been spent traveling back and forth.
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