As the morning sun slowly rose, Xu Han tidied up the house and began preparing to make wine yeast.
Making yeast is not difficult, and the necessary ingredients are all things that are commonly found at home.
Not only do you need to use Polygonum hydropiper, but you also need to use glutinous rice flour. As for licorice and Poria cocos, you can add them or not.
However, since Grandpa Zhao was a doctor, his family did not lack these things, so Xu Han also took an appropriate amount of licorice and poria.
First, clean the Polygonum hydropiper and crush it with a mortar and pestle. Then, pour the crushed Polygonum hydropiper into an appropriate amount of glutinous rice flour.
After doing all that, Xu Han used a mortar and pestle to grind the licorice and poria into powder, then added it to the glutinous rice flour and mixed it well.
Add an appropriate amount of water and knead into a dough of medium consistency.
Finally, roll the kneaded dough into small balls of the same size.
After doing all that, Xu Han took out some yeast from her space. Since she had never done this before, she couldn't guarantee that she would succeed this time.
Therefore, Xu Han did not crush all the yeast, but kept a little bit for later use.
Evenly sprinkle the crushed old yeast on top of the freshly made yeast. This is beneficial for the cultivation of mycelium in the yeast and will result in a higher success rate in making yeast.
Actually, it's possible to use without old yeast, but the time to cultivate the mycelium might be longer. Since Xu Han was in the space, we decided to use her.
After all, we made quite a lot of yeast this time. If we fail, not only will we waste all the ingredients, but we'll also have worked for nothing.
The prepared yeast starters were placed one by one into a winnowing basket, which was then lined with a layer of straw by Xu Han to facilitate the cultivation of yeast later.
The straw padding allows for air circulation, preventing the yeast from directly contacting the back of the winnowing basket and causing mold.
After placing the yeast, cover it with another layer of straw, then cover it with gauze and set it aside to ferment.
After two or three days, the yeast will be covered with mycelium. Then, you can put the yeast in a cool place to air dry naturally.
The yeast that has been naturally air-dried can be stored in jars for a long time, and Xu Han is not worried about not being able to use it all.
I'm afraid there won't be enough left, since we're making a lot of sweet potato wine right now.
After they finished doing all that, Lu Chuan and the others returned from working outside.
Xu Han saw the two of them and asked, "You're back. How was your day? Is the manure composting going well?"
Lu Chuan lifted the wooden bucket in his hand and said, "It's pretty good. It's black and fat, and there are a lot of earthworms inside. I caught a lot of them to feed the chickens in the backyard later."
Xu Han took it and looked at it, saying, "The chickens, ducks, and geese in the backyard are growing bigger and bigger, and they eat a lot more than before. In a little while, take the earthworms from the wooden box in the backyard and put the earthworms you caught in another box to raise. That way, the chickens, ducks, and geese at home won't lack earthworms to eat in the future."
"Okay, I'll go get it done right now."
"I'll go with you this afternoon to catch some earthworms so the livestock can have a good meal and hopefully start laying eggs soon. We've almost run out of eggs, and if we don't start laying soon, we won't have any left to eat."
Upon hearing this, the Taoist priest laughed and said, "Hahaha, the girl is right. Recently, eggs have rarely appeared on the dining table. If the livestock in the backyard stop laying eggs, we really won't have anything to eat."
"Thanks to the fact that we collected a lot of wild duck eggs before, otherwise we probably wouldn't have had any eggs to eat at all."
When Lu Chuan heard Xu Han say this, we couldn't help but think, "It's already late autumn. After more than half a year of breeding, there should be plenty of pheasants, ducks, and rabbits in the mountains now."
We haven't hunted in years. After we finish planting the wheat, we can go hunting in the mountains.
"It will get cold soon and pheasants and ducks will stop nesting. You can go for a walk in the deep mountains when you have time."
"After I finish these few days of work, Xiaochuan and I will go to the mountains to check on the situation."
"Okay, I'll go to the backyard first."
Upon hearing this, Xu Han got up and went to the backyard as well.
In the afternoon, the whole family went to the composting site. Xu Han made a bamboo tongs for Mu'er so that he could also catch earthworms to feed the chickens, ducks and geese at home.
While picking up earthworms, Mu'er said, "Mommy, these earthworms are so fat! How can the little chicks eat them?"
Xu Han smiled and explained, "We can't eat the really big ones. When we get home, we can chop up these earthworms and feed them to the chickens, ducks, and geese. If they grow well, they'll lay eggs faster, and then Mommy will make you some steamed egg custard, okay?"
"I'm all grown up now, I don't eat steamed egg custard anymore, Mom, please make it for my little brother."
Little Mu'er may have noticed that there are fewer eggs on the table lately. Since early spring, Xu Han has been intentionally or unintentionally reducing the number of times everyone eats eggs.
Mu'er used to love Xu Han's steamed egg custard, but later, when eggs became scarce, Xu Han made it less often.
Although there are still some eggs in the space, these are the ones that Xu Han saved.
Xu Han said to her eldest son with a pained expression, "If we hadn't been so careful with our food, we probably wouldn't have had any left."
"Give some to your brother, and some to you too. Once all the hens in the house start laying eggs, we'll have more eggs than we can eat."
"Next spring, after the chickens at home start laying eggs, Mom will incubate a bunch of chicks, ducks, and geese, and then we can eat eggs every day."
Hearing this, Mu'er laughed, "Okay, Daddy and Mommy will eat too, Great-Grandpa and Grandpa Daoist will eat too!"
Grandpa Zhao felt a lump in his throat upon hearing this, never imagining that he wouldn't be able to eat eggs as freely as he wanted in his lifetime.
With so much money in the house, they couldn't even buy an egg.
The group only thought about it briefly, since things were indeed a bit unusual during this period. Although there were fewer eggs, there was no shortage of other things.
Boys? It's okay to raise them a little rough around the edges. If they can't even handle this kind of hardship, they'll hardly amount to anything in the future.
Even so, Xu Han still tried her best not to deprive her child of food, but she didn't care much about clothing and other necessities.
After all, only by eating well can one grow strong and tall.
Fortunately, compared to other children from ordinary families, Mu'er and Ze'er had a much better life during this year of disaster.
As Lu Chuan loaded manure onto the cart, he said, "We can transport more than half of all the manure piles over here today, and we should be able to finish transporting them all by tomorrow morning."
The Taoist priest spat and rubbed his hands together, saying, "We can start harvesting peanuts tomorrow afternoon. I saw that the peanuts were almost ripe when we were transporting manure."
Xu Han replied, "Then I'll go back and dig up some fresh peanuts, and then I'll braise some peanuts and edamame to eat."
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