Chapter 135: Sticky Bean Dumplings
Han Youran said: "Go ask Zhizhi, she knows."
Cheng Rong obediently pulled the curtain and went in to ask Xia Zhizhi: "Zhizhi, what kind of sticky bean buns are you? I want to eat them!"
When the weather gets cold, people tend to get hungry easily, and everything tastes delicious.
After Cheng Rong arrived here, some switch was turned on, and she would go out four times a day to show off. However, after ten days or so, Xia Zhizhi estimated that she had gained five or six pounds.
Looking at Cheng Rong's round face, she thought for a moment and reminded him, "Rongrong, why do I feel like you've become rounder recently?"
"Really?" Cheng Rong stretched out her chubby hands with dimples, touched her face, and said happily, "It seems so. What is sticky bean curd?"
Well, I don’t care about that at all.
Thinking that the worker had come back and she didn't have to do it herself anyway, Xia Zhizhi started talking and listed six or seven kinds of fillings for sticky rice dumplings, including bean filling, dried fruit filling, glutinous rice, and yellow rice. All kinds of colorful fillings had to be tried.
After Cheng Rong finished listening, she immediately ran outside to convey the order.
Tang Mingli wanted to roll his eyes. It was a ten-square-meter house and he was not deaf. How could he not hear them talking inside?
After breakfast, Jiang Xiurong soaked the various beans and grains that were going to be used. Then all the members of the educated youth site, except Xia Zhizhi, went out. They first swept the snow off the roof, then transported the snow in the yard out, and then shoveled the snow on the road to the educated youth site.
This job is actually quite tiring, but there is no way to avoid doing it, otherwise it will be inconvenient to go out to fetch water.
With everyone working together, we finished the job by the afternoon.
Then we started to steam the soaked grains. After the grains were steamed, we rolled them into fillings and made five different flavors. The outer skins were made into two kinds: glutinous rice and yellow rice. Five large steamers were used to steam them.
Xia Zhizhi just had to talk a lot, and Tang Mingli was busy all afternoon, doing this and that.
Five big cages may sound like a lot, but people these days have good appetites and can eat several in one meal, and it won’t take them too long if they don’t eat sparingly.
Cheng Rong dipped them in white sugar, then honey, then brown sugar, then milk powder. She came up with new ways of eating and ate four or five in a row.
This kind of sticky food is difficult to digest if eaten too much, so Xia Zhizhi asked her to stop eating it to avoid indigestion at night.
Cheng Rong felt her stomach and felt that she was right. She went out to shovel some snow. When she came back, she was hungry, so she ate three more.
Everyone ate a lot of tofu, so we won’t make dinner tonight.
After dinner, the captain used a loudspeaker to inform everyone that we would go to Jingbo Lake for winter fishing tomorrow.
The team had already organized people to repair the fishing nets. The temperature was not high enough some time ago, and the lake was not frozen solidly enough. When the heavy snow fell, the captain called people to check. The lake was frozen, so they could dig holes and put down nets. So they used the radio to inform everyone.
All the young players in the team have to help pull the net, and the rest depends on their personal wishes, there is no force.
After all, it was freezing cold, and if we took the old, weak, sick and disabled people there, not only would we be unable to help, we would have to assign more people to look after them.
Jingpo Lake is located on the main stream of Mudanjiang River, a tributary of Songhua River. It is a very deep lake with a large water storage capacity. Unlike ordinary lakes, which are either round or semi-circular, it is like a wide and narrow ribbon inlaid among the mountains, winding for dozens of kilometers. The lake is rich in fisheries.
According to the author's fabrication, the lake is located exactly in the middle of the Zhongxing Brigade and the Shengli Brigade, and these two production brigades are managed by different communes.
Xinglong Commune and the neighboring Hongqi Commune argued for a long time over the ownership of Jingpo Lake.
Although Zhongxing Brigade is a little far from Jingpo Lake and requires climbing over a small hill, the previous president of Xinglong Commune was a stubborn person and was not willing to give in. In the end, the city decided that Jingpo Lake should be jointly owned by the two communes.
During the winter fishing season, both the Zhongxing Brigade and the neighboring Shengli Brigade can send people to fish. Everyone relies on their ability. If they catch a lot, they pay more; if they catch less, they pay less. When luck is good, every member can get two or three big fish after paying in the public fishing nets.
When Cheng Rong heard that they were going to fish in the lake tomorrow, she was extremely excited. She was just like an elementary school student on a spring outing. She was busy packing this and that, and she wished that dawn would come in the blink of an eye.
It's not just Cheng Rong who is like this. Han Youran and Jiang Xiurong are not much better than her. After all, they have only heard of him but never seen him. How can they not be curious?
The three of them gathered together, excitedly discussing what to bring for tomorrow, as they didn't have all the things they had prepared for the spring outing.
Xia Zhizhi sat on the kang and applied lotion to her feet. She didn't care. No matter how much money she brought, it was not hers to take. She had to take the responsibility in times of crisis.
After the three of them finished packing, they saw that it was getting late and prepared to go back to bed. Before leaving, he did not forget to remind her: "Zhizhi, go to bed early too, get up early tomorrow, and remember to bring your camera with you!"
No one asked Xia Zhizhi whether she would go or not. Whenever something like this happened, she would always be at the forefront.
The next day, before daybreak, the people at the educated youth site got up. Cheng Rong also knocked on the door and woke up Xia Zhizhi as well.
While Cheng Rong was boiling water, Xia Zhizhi took out a bag of brown sugar and asked her to cut some ginger. She cooked a big pot of brown sugar ginger tea and filled two thermoses with it. She put one in Cui Zijin's backpack and planned to take the other with her.
Cheng Rong's eyes lit up: "Zhizhi is really thoughtful!" It's so cold outside, it's so pleasant to drink a pot of hot brown sugar ginger tea.
After breakfast, everyone dressed up and gathered at the foot of the mountain.
It's so cold outside at this moment.
Xia Zhizhi put on a hat, put down her ear clips to protect her ears, put on her big red cotton jacket, and put on a full set of autumn clothes, autumn pants and woolen sweaters with a quilted jacket inside.
She put on two pairs of long cashmere socks and struggled to push her left foot into the felt. Seeing how hard she was struggling, Cheng Rong hurried forward to help her push her right foot in.
Cheng Rong looked at her and asked, "You are wearing so many clothes. Will you be able to walk?"
"I'm not planning on walking." Xia Zhizhi put on her bag, which was bulging and she didn't know what was in it.
Cheng Rong reminded: "Camera! Camera!"
Rongrong also wants to leave a memory!
"I know. I won't forget it." Xia Zhizhi first wrapped herself with a scarf so that only her eyes were exposed, then she slung her camera over her shoulder, put on gloves, took a towel blanket, picked up a hot water bottle, and called out to Cheng Rong who couldn't wait, "Let's go."
Everyone gathered on the hillside behind the village.
The snow on the main road in the village had been shoveled away, but not in other places. To get to Jingpo Lake from the back of the mountainside, you can get there with a tractor in the summer and ask someone to push it, but that's not possible in the winter. After all, a tractor is heavier than a person at this time. It's okay if people work hard, but if the tractor is broken, that would be a disaster, so everyone is willing to walk there.
After the scorekeepers counted the people, the members led their donkeys and cows, carried their family chores, and set off for Jingpo Lake.