amaotonovel Chapter 73 Good things and bad things
Chapter 73 Good things and bad things
Heihei also likes to eat chicken dumplings, so Xia Qingyue specially makes dumplings with cowpea and meat filling without salt and dumplings with pure egg filling for it.
First, cook the black dumplings and pour them into its bowl, and also add some crispy and fragrant lard residue.
While her dumplings were being cooked, she sat at the dining table, holding the bowl in her hands, grabbing the lard residue sprinkled with a little salt. It was crispy and fragrant in one bite, and she was easily addicted to it.
But eating too much would cause sore throat, so she ate half a bowl and then forced herself to hold down her hands to stop eating.
A lot of oil was refined, and the lard residue filled three large bowls. She was thinking about making dumplings with lard residue and sauerkraut stuffing in the evening.
Unfortunately, chickens and ducks cannot eat too much high-fat lard, and rabbits cannot eat it even more.
The number of fish and shrimp in the stream has greatly decreased. It is difficult to catch them and you can't catch many, so I simply give up.
It seems that all this lard residue can only be eaten by her and Heihei.
Soon, her dumplings were cooked, and she took them out of the water and put them in a bowl.
She likes to eat dry dumplings.
A small half bowl of mountain pepper sauce is also prepared as a dipping sauce.
I haven't had fresh pork and dumplings for a long time. They are delicious.
After eating two dumplings, she noticed that the drying pork jerky attracted flies, so she picked up the palm-leaf fan and ran over, fanning herself while eating.
This meal was the busiest and most tiring one she had ever had.
After eating, she washed the dishes. Although the jerky pork was not marinated for a long time, the sun was strong during the day, so if it was made today, it could be dried in the sun, otherwise it would have to wait until tomorrow.
After thinking about it, she decided to make the pork jerky.
Pick out the scallion roots and ginger pieces from the pickled pork, spread them on a grate and steam them in batches, then put them on a bamboo raft to dry in the sun.
Scented things tend to attract flies, so she simply didn't take a nap today and instead stood by, fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan.
The process was arduous and tiring, but when she saw the finished pork jerky and dried meat, she suddenly felt less tired and tasted them greedily.
The pork jerky was dried perfectly without any excess moisture. It tasted dry, fragrant and slightly sweet, and tasted pretty good.
It’s definitely not as good as what I ate in my previous life, but given today’s conditions it’s a blessing to be able to eat it, so why should I be picky?
The pork jerky really surprised her.
The meat jerky that had been dried for several hours was about 80% dry. When pulled apart, there were shreds of meat inside. The outside was reddish-black in color and coated with chili powder and green peppercorns.
Take a bite, the jerky is chewy and stringy, spicy and salty, and it becomes more chewy when dried. It is a very good snack to kill time.
She had long been craving for the snacks from her previous life, but unfortunately she could no longer eat them. From now on, she would try to recreate some of the snacks based on the existing ingredients.
She ate two pieces of pork jerky in a row. Heihei watched her beside her, drooling from her greedy mouth.
"Heihei, yours has it too, but without any seasoning!"
She picked up two light-colored strips of meat from the bamboo raft and threw them at Heihei.
Heihei got the food, his face was full of smiles and his tail was wagging wildly.
It was getting dark now, and Xia Qingyue put the dried pork and pork jerky into two earthenware pots and covered them.
The pork jerky needs to be dried again tomorrow. I used more than ten pounds of fresh meat, but after drying it, there are only more than four pounds. Her spicy and dark tasteless ones weigh more than two pounds each.
The pork jerky also shrinks a lot, weighing only three pounds after being made.
It is enough for her to eat in the short term, and it cannot be kept for that long in the hot weather.
While making dumplings for dinner, she thought that there were not many green peppercorns left. It would be the season for harvesting green peppercorns soon, so she had to go out and get some more.
When cooking dumplings, she cooked some more green leafy vegetables, half with the black vegetables, and half with the green vegetables. She had to eat enough green vegetables every day.
After dinner, she took a good bath for the first time. After that, she felt relaxed and as if she was alive again.
Time passed, and in mid-to-late June, Xia Qingyue had her second period.
It’s still a little more regular, once a month.
When it doesn't come, I'm anxious and busy. When it comes, I'm in agony and feel uncomfortable all over.
After using the menstrual belt once, she got the hang of it, but she was still not used to it. It felt heavy and had a strong presence.
She didn't dare to turn over when she slept at night and slept straight.
After a few days, her neck was sore from sleeping.
After enduring these difficult days, Xia Qingyue watched the water in the pond become less and less. She was worried about it every day and couldn't be happy at all.
Crops like cowpea, eggplant, cucumber, loofah, gourd, etc. had turned yellow and dried up due to the sun, and the new fruits were few and of poor quality, so she simply picked the existing fruits and left them to fend for themselves.
The few that are still alive and well are kept well and all of them are kept for seeds.
I keep a small portion of the picked vegetables in the cellar to eat in the near future, such as eggplant, loofah, gourd, and cucumber. I also keep a little bit. I can eat these fresh vegetables in the near future, but I can’t guarantee that they will be available in the future.
Most of the rest were dried by her.
Including the first two times and this time, I have done three practical things in total.
We got about 15 kilograms of dried cucumbers.
10 kilograms of dried loofah and dried gourd.
Twelve pounds of dried eggplant.
Eighteen pounds of dried cowpeas.
She waters peppers, pumpkins, peanuts, sweet potatoes, ginger, and fruit trees every three days, trying her best to keep them all alive.
The camellia has withered, the flowers have dried up on the tree, become wrinkled, and the fragrance is gone.
As long as the tree is still there, it will bloom again next year, so she watered it like watering vegetables.
The leaves of the rice in the paddy fields began to turn yellow. Even though she tried her best to fetch water every two days, the soil in the fields was still dry.
The above are bad things.
There was one good thing, which was that the pond was dug to the depth she wanted, nearly four meters deep, so it was considered done.
The rice has also bloomed, with small flowers blooming.
Every time she sees those little flowers, she feels healed and uses them as motivation to go out and fetch water.
However, things did not go as planned. The water in the middle reaches of the stream became shallower and shallower, and it took five minutes to fill a bucket. The water was completely cut off in the downstream area, revealing dried sand and rocks, and all the plants on the shore had died.
It took her more time and energy to fetch water. These problems were not big issues. The main thing was the water. If the water was gone, everything would be gone.
On this day in early July, early in the morning, Xia Qingyue went to the pond to check the situation as usual.
Large and small rocks were exposed at the bottom of the pool, with a little water in between, but not enough to submerge the rocks.
"It's over, this day has finally come!"
She exhaled weakly.
In fact, she had sensed the arrival of this day a few days ago. From that day on, she would carry a wooden bucket to the upper reaches of the stream every day to fetch water and store it in water tanks for drinking.
In other words, from today on, she, Heihei, chickens, ducks and rabbits can only drink water brought in from outside.
As a result, she no longer has as much energy to take care of the vegetable gardens and crops in the rice fields, and they may soon die.
She raised her hand to scratch her hair in annoyance. "Oh, never mind. Just take care of me, Heihei, the chickens, ducks and rabbits first. Let the rest take their own course. The food I've stored is enough to last for a while."
This was the only way she could comfort herself. Even so, she still felt depressed and sad.