The acres of land next to the mulberry field are planted with fruits and vegetables, with various types and colors.
There were some that Uncle Wang knew, and some that he had never seen before. Squeezed and squeezed together, they are growing very well. Some were not even planted during this season.
Uncle Wang had been farming for decades, and this was the first time he saw such a scene, and he was deeply shocked.
He couldn't help but doubt that he had been a white man for the past few decades. He was so old-fashioned that he couldn't do it as well as a noble girl who couldn't lift it with her hands or carry it on her shoulders.
If Xu Yin heard Uncle Wang's thoughts, she would probably burst into laughter.
This is the charm of scientific farming!
"Uncle Wang, many of these vegetables are ripe. I'll have some tied with red cotton strings to save the seeds. The rest should be picked by someone in the near future. Send some to the palace every day, and you can share the rest. The melons still have to wait. After a period of time, when they are ripe, pick some and save the seeds, and use the rest as vegetables. Send the first batch of melons to the palace, and you can share the rest to eat."
Uncle Wang expressed his gratitude to the tenant farmers in the village.
After Xu Yin finished visiting the vegetable patch, she went next door to look at the rice field.
It will take another month for the rice to mature, which is just in time to harvest before going on a trip. When the time comes, you can go out and play with the joy of the harvest and be in a good mood to fly.
"Princess, there are still three-thirds of the food beans, what do you plan to do with them?"
Uncle Wang saw that in the fruit and vegetable field, there were a few rows of beans, which were still green at the moment.
This bean is generally used to feed livestock. It’s not that people can’t eat it, but eating too much will bloat the stomach. They only fry some during the Chinese New Year and give it to the children as snacks. Therefore, they don’t grow much. Who would be willing to use good land to grow livestock feed? .
But the princess had just asked him to send some of each vegetable to the palace, and she was not sure whether the package included the beans.
Xu Yin thought of this and patted her forehead: "I almost forgot! Don't pick too many green bean pods, give them away once or twice for a taste, and wait until the remaining ones are ripe and golden before harvesting. Come back." I’m of great use.”
The soybeans are almost ripe, so you can start thinking about tofu and soy sauce.
She took a moment to glance at her energy point balance, luckily! During this period, apart from spending some money on solar panels, I saved the rest. It’s not a fool’s errand. The 3,000 energy points exchanged for the soy sauce recipe can be arranged.
After arranging the farming work in the experimental field, Xu Yin returned to the palace with a cart of vegetables grown by herself and several relatively ripe watermelons and melons.
Yan Kejin hasn't come back from the mine yet.
Xu Yin took a bath, changed into a light gauze skirt, and let Qiu Shuang open a watermelon.
It was a little raw but still edible. I cut a bowl of melon meat and ate it with a fork.
There is a lot of water and the sweetness is slightly lacking, but Xu Yin is very satisfied. After all, it is not fully mature yet. If it is raised for another ten days and a half, the taste will improve.
But no matter how delicious it was, one person couldn't eat the whole melon. Most of it was given to the nanny to share with the maids.
"Don't leave the melon cut for a long time, otherwise bacteria will easily breed."
Grandma didn’t know what bacteria were, but she knew that fruits that had been stored for a long time could easily make you sick, so she took them and shared them.
When Yan Kejin came back, it was already night.
The watermelon was too big to be eaten when it was opened, so Xu Yin had someone cut a melon into it.
"Can you eat it?"
Yan Kejin knew that she had planted a lot of fruits and vegetables on the village as soon as she arrived, but she didn't expect that it was already the harvest season.
"The melons are still a bit undercooked, so pick a few and try them first."
Melons were first brought to the Central Plains by Hu merchants. The nobles in Beijing would grow some in hot spring villages. Whether they are eaten at home or given to others, they are excellent seasonal fruits. It is rare here in Nanman.
I think it's still a problem of inconvenient transportation.
Of course, the main reason is that even eating a full meal with an open stomach is still a luxury. The fields are limited, who would think of growing melons? Every time you plant a melon, you lose a share of grain, which makes me feel sad just thinking about it.
Because Xu Yin had high-yielding rice seeds in her hands, she planted some fruits for a change. What's more, vitamins are also necessary for the human body.
"I read a travelogue that said that the small island country in the Southeast Asia is rich in tropical fruits. If you have the chance to go there, you must bring some back. The climate here is actually quite suitable for growing fruits."
"Did you read it in miscellaneous books again?" Yan Kejin looked at her with a half-smile.
Xu Yin smiled and said nothing. Anyway, just leave everything to "the book"!
…
The next day, she personally cooked a table of home-cooked dishes using the fresh vegetables sent from Zhuangzi.
After wearing it, this was the first time I touched pots and pans, and I felt a little raw.
It can be seen that it is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it will be uncomfortable to go from luxury to frugality.
It would be hard to avoid dressing up like a peasant girl on the run and having to rely on herself for everything next time. Xu Yin decided to cook more in the future.
"Try it, I made it!"
She raised her chin sternly at Yan Kejin who came through the door.
King Jinnan, who heard that the princess was busy in the kitchen early in the morning, deliberately did not leave the house today and came to the main courtyard on time for dinner. He looked at her with a smile and sat down.
"The princess grows, harvests, and cooks the dishes herself. I must taste them."
On the table, he had only eaten fish in sour soup and eight-treasure duck.
The rest, such as cucumber with garlic, winter melon with shrimp skin, scrambled egg with tomato, stir-fried cabbage, spinach with pine nuts, pumpkin cake with minced meat and shredded carrots, are all made from ingredients that have never been seen before.
"This was all cultivated from the seeds you bought from Shang Hu?"
Xu Yin knew he would ask this.
In fact, the only seeds she bought from Hu Shang were pumpkins and carrots that had not yet been planted in Yanhua. The rest were transferred from the system warehouse by her using the name "Hu Shang".
Some of them should have been introduced into the country around the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but they are all imported. Wouldn't it be better to bring them out in advance to enrich the people's dining tables?
Therefore, Xu Yin nodded without any guilt:
"Well, I was worried that the seeds from the north would not be planted here. I didn't expect them to grow very well. It seems that the water and soil in the south are very suitable for planting. I asked Uncle Wang to save the seeds. When the yield increases in the future, they can be supplied to the palace. Restaurants can also open a shop specifically to sell the seeds of these vegetables at a lower price. People can buy them and plant them in front of and behind their houses to add a few dishes to the table. If there are more, they can sell them on the street to supplement their family income. .”
Yan Kejin took a deep look at her and then smiled: "It's a pity that the princess is so broad-minded and not a man."
Xu Yin: "..."
If I were a man, would we still be destined for each other?
…
It's the Dragon Boat Festival in two days.
Xu Yin asked the kitchen to make a lot of rice dumplings in advance. The flavors are very rich, including eight-treasure rice dumplings, osmanthus honey bean paste and red date rice dumplings, salted egg yolk fresh meat rice dumplings, chestnut meat rice dumplings... There are several kinds of salty and sweet varieties.
One of the Dragon Boat Festival benefits for the servants in the mansion is a bunch of assorted rice dumplings.
When the chef first heard from Xu Yin that she wanted to make a batch of salted egg yolk meat dumplings and chestnut meat rice dumplings, she was dumbfounded.
He has worked as a royal cook in the palace for so many years and has personally prepared thousands if not tens of thousands of rice dumplings with fillings. He has never made salty rice dumplings.
Aren’t all rice dumplings sweet? Can I eat something salty?
