At three o'clock in the Yin hour, the sun sets in the west.
Cheng Wanwan and the rest of the family got busy.
Zhao Sidan's job is very simple. He goes to the mountains to dig wild vegetables, then comes back and chops them up to feed the chickens.
Zhao Sanniu and Zhao Ergou are responsible for loosening the soil, watering the dry vegetable fields in front of and behind the house, and then digging and plowing them so that they can be sown tomorrow.
Zhao Dashan made ice powder under the command of Cheng Wanwan.
Put a small bowl of stone flower seeds in a cloth bag, put it in a basin with water, and rub it as hard as you can. Keep kneading and beating, and wash out all the layers on the surface of the stone flower seeds until the clear water gradually becomes thicker. .
Half a pound of stone flower seeds turned into a large pot of thick, shapeless ice powder.
The spring water on the mountain is cold enough, and the shapeless ice powder is placed in the spring water to freeze and wait for it to condense.
While waiting, Cheng Wanwan asked her sons to go up the mountain to look for hawthorn fruits. This season is when hawthorns are ripe. The chopped hawthorn pulp is placed in ice powder. The sweet and sour taste makes people want to eat it after taking one bite. Take another bite.
Cheng Wanwan and Wu Huiniang were boiling sugar water in a pot.
This sugar is brown sugar bought in the mall. There is also red sugar in this era, but it is coarse sugar and the taste is not very good.
She plans to make two flavors first, hawthorn ice powder and sweetened ice powder with sugar. She doesn’t know which one is more popular.
Wu Huiniang watched her mother-in-law pour a large box of brown sugar into the pot, and felt extremely distressed. These days, meat is expensive, and sugar is even more expensive. Such a lot of sugar costs at least fifty or sixty cents. The lantern grass that no one wants on the mountain can really make these. Can you earn back the copper coins?
Wu Huiniang didn't believe that lantern grass could make anything delicious, but she had one advantage: she never questioned her mother-in-law and did whatever her mother-in-law said.
When the sugar water came out of the pot, Zhao Sidan rushed into the house with a handful of hawthorn fruits.
"The four eggs are so awesome!" Cheng Wanwan praised without hesitation, "When the ice powder comes out, we will be rewarded with the four eggs in the first bowl."
Zhao Sidan licked his lips and stared straight at the ice powder frozen in the spring water.
Cheng Wanwan wiped her hands clean, took a pair of chopsticks and walked to the edge of the basin, and poked it with the chopsticks. The ice powder was still in a shapeless state.
It has been almost an hour. Logically speaking, it should have gradually started to solidify. Could it be that she forgot some steps?
She sat on the edge, thinking hard, recalling bit by bit the details of that time she made ice powder in Xinyang... When she remembered, she had indeed forgotten a step. When she was washing the stone flower seeds, the staff was in the container. I don’t know what kind of powder was put in. This powder should be the key to solidification.
Zhao Sidan squatted by the water basin, blinking his big eyes: "Mom, can you eat it?"
Zhao Ergou secretly stretched out his finger to lick it, his eyes lit up: "Icy, cool, delicious!"
"Really?" Zhao Sidan couldn't help it anymore. He quickly took a spoon and put some in his mouth. He licked his tongue and his eyes lit up. "Mom, what is this called? It's so cool to eat when the weather is hot. I like it very much, I can definitely sell it for money!”
Cheng Wanwan looked at a large pot of failed products and said helplessly: "These are edible, but they can't be sold for money. Let's make them again."
Wu Huiniang said anxiously: "Mom, is there something I didn't do well?"
From the beginning to the end, it was her mother-in-law who told her how to do it, and she was responsible for the actual details. She was afraid that she would make a mistake in any step and ruin her mother-in-law's business.
Cheng Wanwan shook his head: "It has nothing to do with you. I forgot what to add in the middle. You guys eat a bowl first, and then prepare to make dinner. I will think about it quietly."
She walked to the back of the house, blew in the wind, and concentrated on her memories again.
But in her previous life, she was just traveling and didn't even notice what the packet of powder was. No matter how she recalled it, she couldn't remember it.
When Cheng Wanwan was frustrated, he suddenly slapped himself on the forehead: "What a fool."
She has a trading mall, and the books in the mall are equivalent to encyclopedias. Can't she just spend money to buy a book about making ice powder?
She clicked on the mall to search, and sure enough, there was a recipe for ice powder. She bought a recipe for eight cents.
She opened the recipe and saw the raw material prompts. To make ice powder, you need to add lime powder to solidify it. Lime powder should have appeared in this era, but it probably didn't exist in Dahe Village. She could buy it from the mall, but in the future This craft must be handed over to Wu Huiniang. Where will Wu Huiniang get lime powder?
She continued reading the recipe, which, while cheap, was so crude that it didn't even mention a substitute for lime powder.
Cheng Wanwan held her forehead in frustration. She thought about the properties of lime powder and suddenly had an idea. Would it work if the lime powder was replaced with starch?
Just do it!
Cheng Wanwan bought some corn flour, white flour, sweet potato flour and the like that are common in Dahe Village in the mall, and then walked to the front yard.
Each of the four boys held a bowl of ice powder, sipping it in small sips, smacking their lips after one sip, which looked a little funny.
"This big basin is full of failed products. If you're full, you won't be able to drink the finished product when it comes out." Cheng Wanwan laughed and shook his head, "While it's still early, let's help together."
She divided the crushed stone flower seeds into several small basins, added corn flour, white flour, and sweet potato flour respectively, and placed them in well water.
While waiting, Cheng Wanwan and Wu Huiniang prepared dinner together.
The vegetables on the table were still wild vegetables and mushrooms, nothing fresh. The most lacking thing at home was meat. There was no reason to eat meat openly.
Rice with wild vegetables and mushrooms is the best food in Dahe Village.
After dinner, it was getting dark.
Cheng Wanwan went to check the three test products. The ice powder with sweet potato starch solidified the fastest. It already had a jelly-like texture. It would probably take just one more cup of tea.
She got up to prepare the ingredients, took out all the bowls at home, put chopped hawthorn pulp in half, and black sticky brown sugar water in the other half. Finally, she cut the solidified ice powder into small cubes and placed them in one bowl. Six pieces, and then put them smoothly into the bamboo basket.
There were only eight bowls at home, and the basket could only hold eight bowls of ice powder. She walked out of the house carrying the basket.
There are still people in the rice fields at the door.
The rice that had been dry for almost two months suddenly had water. Some farmers were reluctant to leave the fields and walked back and forth in their rice fields over and over again, fearing that this was just a dream.
When Cheng Wanwan walked over, many people took the initiative to say hello to her. This was something that had never happened before.
She carried the basket and walked to Lao Zhao's house, where the whole family was enjoying the cool air in the yard.
"Da Shan Niang, are you here?" Old Mrs. Zhao looked at the basket in her hand, "Have you really cooked something to eat?"
Cheng Wanwan nodded: "Didn't you ask the children to help pick lanterns a few days ago? They were made of that stuff. It's the first time I've made it, and I don't know how it tastes. If you think it's good, I'll take it to town tomorrow. Go check it out and see if anyone buys it.”
She took out the bowls from the basket and placed a total of eight bowls on the table. There were twelve people in Lao Zhao's family. She was just about to ask a few children to go to her house to eat, adding flour and cornmeal. They won't be sold in town, but they all taste the same, so the kids can handle it.
Before she could say anything, Mrs. Sun said quickly: "Spring flowers, winter flowers, what are you doing with your flowers? If you don't hurry up and get the bowl, there won't be any left if you're late!"
Mrs. Sun twitched her lips. The sister-in-law was too stingy. There were twelve people here, and they only brought eight bowls. Then four people couldn't eat. If the old lady didn't let the girls eat, then the two girls in their third room would have to eat. You can't even afford it. No matter how you calculate it, it's a three-bedroom loss.
