amaotonovel Chapter 208: Chili Sauce
Chapter 208: Chili Sauce
Xia Qingyue knew that he was considerate of her physical discomfort during her menstrual period, and out of respect, he looked at her and said that.
Some people are different. They do things in the name of doing good for you, regardless of your opinion, and do it their own way. After they are done, they say, "Look how much I care about you, how good I am to you, and how much I love you."
She personally doesn't like that and can't accept it.
She knew very well what her physical condition was. She felt a little uncomfortable on the first day of her period, but it was fine after blood clots appeared on the fourth day. She was fine for the rest of the days.
"My physical condition is fine. Don't worry, I will make the decision based on the actual situation and will not try to be stubborn."
Hearing her say that, he said nothing more. He picked up a whole chicken wing from the big bowl of chicken and put it into her bowl.
After breakfast, Xia Qingyue went back to her room to make a menstrual belt, and made everything she would need for the next few days of this month.
Her neck felt a little sore after working with her head down for a long time. She put her hands on her waist, turned her neck and walked out of the room. The two little ones were sleeping in the main room.
As she stepped over the threshold, she saw red peppers piled up like a mountain under the eaves. The long eaves blocked the sunlight, so she was not exposed to the sunlight.
Han Zhibai is not at home, he must still be working in the fields.
She moved a low stool and sat at the door, picking red peppers. The older ones were used to dry and make dried peppers, and the tenderer ones were used to make chili garlic sauce and chopped peppers.
She picked up several large buckets and poured the tender ones into a large oil-free wooden basin to wash them. For the vegetables grown by the farmers themselves, they only needed to be washed to remove the dust on the surface. They would be clean after washing them twice.
After washing, spread them out on a bamboo raft and dry them in the sun to remove all the surface moisture.
The old red peppers do not need to be washed, just pour them on the ground and dry them.
While the tender red peppers were drying, she found a few jars, boiled water, washed them clean, peeled garlic and ginger to prepare the ingredients.
Everything was ready, but she was worried about the knife to chop the peppers.
When she was a child in her previous life, when she was five or six years old, she saw her grandmother chopping peppers with a knife. She thought it was fun, so when her grandmother was away, she curiously picked up the knife covered with pepper powder and started chopping like her. After a few chops, she couldn't open her eyes because of the spiciness, and her nose and tears were running, and her hands felt like they were burning with pain.
Still remembering the painful lesson, she didn't dare to try to chop it with a knife again.
Before she traveled through time, she had seen on video clips someone holding a knife that looked like a shovel. The knife was fixed with a wooden stick, and he used the stick to chop things, which was easy and simple.
She walked around the room, trying to find something similar.
Finally, she found a nearly new, flat iron shovel with a sharp blade at the bottom. She took it in her hand and looked at it, thinking it was novel. "This is it!"
"Qingyue." Han Zhibai came back with red pepper and ginger on his back. Seeing what she was holding, he asked, "What are you doing with this?"
“This device is so special.”
"I drew the blueprint and asked a blacksmith to make it when I went down the mountain earlier this year. It's used to weed out overgrown weeds and it works great."
"I see. I want to wash it and chop the peppers so my hands don't get spicy."
"Yes, Qingyue, you are so smart." He smiled with his eyes narrowed, and the gentle light in his eyes was like little stars in the night sky, dazzling.
"You are very smart, to be able to think of and draw such a handy tool."
He felt embarrassed by the praise, his whole face turned red, he raised his hand to scratch his head, but he was smiling happily, looking a little silly.
"Before, weeding was done with a hoe or a sickle, but neither was very convenient. After doing it many times, I wondered if I could make a tool specifically for weeding."
Xia Qingyue couldn't help laughing and looked at him with a giggle. Before his face turned redder, she took a spatula to scrub it and even washed it several times with hot water.
Pour red pepper, garlic cloves, peeled ginger into a large wooden basin in a ratio of 5:2:1, then use a spatula or a wooden stick to start chopping.
The hands are the most tiring during the chopping process, so she took turns chopping with both hands for about quarters of an hour. When the chopping was of similar thickness, she poured in an appropriate amount of salt, a little brown sugar, and finally a little white wine and stirred it evenly.
The strong aroma of pepper wafts into the air. This pot is used to make one and a half jars of chopped peppers. After putting them into the jars, I continued to chop them and made another one and a half jars, a total of three jars. After they were done, I moved them to a cool place in the kitchen to ferment.
Garlic chili sauce requires a lot of oil. First, chop the main ingredients, red pepper and garlic. Pour peanut oil into the pot. When it starts to smoke, add the red pepper and stir-fry on low heat until the water is dry. When the soup turns red, add the minced garlic and stir-fry on low heat while stirring.
Finally, add salt, sugar, and dried mushroom powder, and pour a splash of white wine and it’s done.
The whole room was filled with the aroma of garlic chili sauce, but the two little ones were not able to enjoy it. They choked and ran their noses, and hid far away.
In the morning, Xia Qingyue made chopped pepper hot sauce, and Han Zhibai harvested all the red peppers and most of the ginger and garlic.
Han Zhibai came back after finishing his work to make lunch.
After eating, Xia Qingyue felt a little sleepy and went back to the room for a nap.
Han Zhibai wore a straw hat and went to the fields to harvest ginger and garlic. Seeing that the time was almost up, he went to the sorghum field to cut a few stalks and picked out the good ones, as some that turned red were rotten and could not be eaten.
Carrying the sorghum stalks back, he went straight into the kitchen.
After sleeping for more than half an hour, Xia Qingyue fell into a deep sleep. She was very thirsty, so she picked up the bamboo tube that was used as a cup on the bedside table and gulped down a few gulps of water.
After sitting on the bed in a daze for a while, she opened the door and walked out. She thought Han Zhibai was also taking a nap, but when she opened his door, she didn't see anyone and the bedding was neatly folded.
"Hmm, what's that smell?" She followed the aroma to the kitchen and saw Han Zhibai busy in front of the stove.
He turned around when he heard the voice, and when he saw her, he smiled, "Qingyue, you're up. I cooked some glutinous rice balls with red dates and brown sugar, and they'll be ready soon."
"No wonder it smells so good." She sniffed and looked into the pot. She saw round white dumplings rolling in the red soup, and she immediately felt hungry.
"Sit down and eat this first." He brought out some green sorghum stalks. "It's sweet and refreshing. I just ate two."
She took the sorghum stalks happily and said, "Wow, I forgot about this. When I was a child, I went to the fields with my grandmother and I liked to eat sorghum stalks the most. Corn stalks are also okay."
"Corn stalks?" He asked in confusion, stirring the glutinous rice balls in the pot with a spatula.
Xia Qingyue, holding the sorghum stalks in her hands, was racking her brains to explain her hasty words when she heard him say:
"Sweet trees are a bit like this kind of pole. They all have sweet roots. I cut down some sweet trees last fall and they should grow back this year."
Hearing him say this, Xia Qingyue became full of curiosity about the world outside the law. She asked him questions while chewing sorghum stalks and listened to his story.
After eating two sorghum stalks, they sat in the kitchen, each holding a bowl of glutinous rice balls, eating and talking. She was fascinated by what she heard and wanted to explore far away more and more.
Before taking a shower that night, Xia Qingyue got her period. Fortunately, her pants were not seriously dirty. She took a shower, changed into her pajamas, put on her menstrual belt, and washed the dirty pants.
On the first day she arrived, she didn't do anything except sitting. Most of the time she lay on the bed. It was naturally comfortable to lie down.
When it was time for dinner, Han Zhibai prepared the meal and she ate it. He had also taken care of everything else so she didn't have to worry about anything.
On the second or third day of her period, she had some energy and did some simple chores, such as picking grass for pigs in the valley, preparing food for the poultry, taking out the pickled fish and drying them in the sun, and then putting away all the dried fish.
After Han Zhibai harvested all the ginger and garlic in the vegetable garden, he ran up the mountain every day to chop whole dry firewood and pushed it back in a wheelbarrow. The firewood pile in the kitchen was piled high, and the open space under the eaves in the backyard was also full.
There are many places that need firewood in winter, and this amount of firewood is obviously not enough.