After seeing off Wang Ping and others, it was almost half past six!
At this time, Uzhina also came back from school and was helping Li Youwei take care of the two little ones who had woken up in the next room, while Li Youwei herself was still busy in the kitchen!
When Zhou Yang returned to the house, he saw Li Youwei washing the pot with half a basin of noodles beside him. He didn't know what to do!
Zhou Yang came to the stove and asked, "Where is mother?"
"gone back!"
"Why don't you leave after eating?"
"Mom has to go back to cook for my brother and sister-in-law, but she will come over later and help us pickle the pickles!" Li Youwei said.
Zhou Yang sniffed, then looked at the big vat in the corner and said, "Hey, I smell the smell of pickles, where does it come from?"
Li Youwei smiled and said: "I have already marinated one tank, and there is still a lot left. I plan to pickle another tank!"
"Can you eat so much pickled food?"
"If you don't marinate it, it won't last and it will go bad in a few days. What a pity!"
Zhou Yang did not struggle with this issue, but looked at Li Youwei and asked: "What are you planning to do?"
"Stir up some cake!"
Then she explained: "I didn't expect you guys to come back today. There won't be enough food for dinner tonight, so I thought I'd make some cakes!"
Zhou Yang couldn't help but swallowed when he heard that his wife was making cakes.
La Gao, the most distinctive local delicacy, is made from oatmeal noodles and is rarely seen in nearby counties.
Although this kind of food has cake in its name, it is not a pastry, but a lump food made of oatmeal noodles.
The way to eat it is relatively simple, just cut radish, cucumber and other vegetables into shreds, chop coriander, add vinegar and soy sauce, add water and salt, add a few drops of sesame oil with fried Sichuan peppercorns, make vegetable soup and eat it .
If there are no fresh vegetables, pickled vegetables can also be paired with pickled vegetable soup. The locals say: take cake and cold pickled soup.
Although Zhou Yang doesn't like eating noodles very much, he does like eating cakes.
Especially in summer and autumn, when the weather is hot and scorching, eating a bowl of cold pickled soup mixed with cake is also a kind of enjoyment.
"You light the fire, I'll do it!"
Zhou Yang specially learned how to make stir-fry cakes from his mother-in-law, and has already mastered the essence.
Li Youwei knew that Zhou Yang's craftsmanship was better than hers, so she immediately abdicated and gave up the position of chef to Zhou Yang, while she was demoted to the role of fireman.
The cake is delicious, but difficult to make.
Stirring the cake is a technical job, and the pot may get burnt if you are not careful. Once it gets burnt, the taste will be lost.
Zhou Yang first boiled half a pot of water. After the water boiled, he left half of it and scooped out the rest for later use.
Then use cold water to disperse the rolling water in the pot, hold the special mixing stick in your right hand, and grab the oatmeal noodles from the oatmeal basin that has been prepared on the pot stand with your left hand.
Use your left hand to sprinkle noodles into the pot clockwise, and use your right hand to stir the noodles in the pot clockwise with a dough stick. The two hands work together and their movements are coordinated.
After a while, a piece of harder dough appeared in the big pot, and the "cake" began to take shape.
But this is not edible yet!
Then Zhou Yang used a shovel to make a few cuts in the dough, poured one-third of the boiling water in the ladle on the pot table over the dough, covered the pot, and cooked over warm fire for 2-3 minutes.
Then uncover the pot and continue stirring in the pot with the dough stick until all the water poured on the dough is incorporated into the dough.
Then use a shovel to cut the dough, pour boiling water, and cook the dough...
Cut the noodles in this way - add water - cook the noodles - stir the noodles, repeat three times, and the job is done.
At this time, a soft, chewy, smooth and delicious "three-water cake" appeared in the iron pot.
After taking the cake out of the pan, you still have to adjust the soup.
There were no more cucumbers, radishes, etc., so Zhou Yang scooped some cold pickled soup from the vat, cut some freshly delivered pickled cabbage, and poured it with chili oil. The aroma instantly came out.
At that moment, Zhou Yang invited other people in the family to eat!
The dinner was a bit complicated. In addition to the freshly mixed cake, there was also a small pot of millet porridge and a dozen steamed buns with a yellowish and dark color.
In addition, there is a big bowl of stew and a plate of pickles!
Obviously, the steamed buns and stew were left over from lunch.
This is also a characteristic of local people's meals. They cook a little more when cooking at noon, make some porridge at night, and heat up the leftover food at noon to make a meal.
I don't know if it was because the food at home was good, but Zhou Yang's appetite was surprisingly good today. In addition to eating a large bowl of cold cakes, he also ate a large steamed bun and drank a large bowl of millet porridge.
His appetite shocked Li Youwei, and she thought she had been abused outside, so she couldn't help but ask a few more questions.
Liu Yunlong, who was watching on the sidelines, couldn't help but snickered!
He knew how good the food was at the Liaoshen Aircraft Factory.
Although it is not a delicacy, it is meat every meal, and it is not the same every week.
However, when faced with the carefully prepared food there, Zhou Yang's reaction was very ordinary. On the contrary, Liu Yunlong and others ate well.
........
Zhou Yang and the others had just finished their meal, and before they had put away the bowls and chopsticks, they heard another movement outside the gate.
Soon, the mother-in-law came in with her sister-in-law Lin Aizhi.
The sister-in-law also held a black jar in her hand, and she didn't know what was in it.
"Mom, sister-in-law, you are here, hurry up and sit on the kang!" Zhou Yang greeted immediately.
"No, hurry up and pickle the vegetables for you. We have to go back to pickle the vegetables at the old house later!" said the mother-in-law.
"Okay, I'll help you!"
"OK!"
Later, under the command of my mother-in-law, the whole family was busy making pickles.
Although eating pickles all year round is not good for your health, for local people, they cannot live without pickles.
There is no way, the main reason is still poverty.
In addition, the cold weather in the Saibei area in winter is not conducive to the growth of vegetables. After the frost, there are basically no green leafy vegetables.
Since supplies are not abundant, every family can only survive the winter by storing vegetables and pickling vegetables.
Pickling is something that requires special skills. Take the most common mustard dumplings as an example. If they are pickled well, they will have a crisp and tender texture. Cut into thin strips and mixed with some vinegar, it will be very delicious.
But if it is not marinated well, it will become powdery and dry, and no one will be happy to eat it.
Because skills are very strong and experience is very important, Zhou Yang has to invite his mother-in-law to help every year when making pickles at home.
My mother-in-law has a lot of experience in pickling. I saw her skillfully putting the large piles of mustard greens, radishes and Chinese cabbage that she washed in the afternoon into a large vat. She placed a layer on it and asked my sister-in-law to sprinkle a few handfuls of salt into it.
At this time, Zhou Yang finally saw clearly that the jar in his sister-in-law's hand actually contained salt, and it was large grain salt produced locally, mainly used for pickling vegetables.
After working for about an hour, I finally marinated hundreds of kilograms of vegetables at home in a large vat.
Finally, the mother-in-law put a large stone weighing more than ten kilograms prepared in advance into the pickle jar, and the Zhou family's pickles were finally pickled.
After seeing off their mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Fan Debiao and Wu Zhina also returned to the east room, while Liu Yunlong took Wen Hui to the west room.
Soon, Zhou Yang's family was the only one left in the main room.
Zhou Yang finally had some free time and could take a good look at his two sons!
The two little guys are now five months old. They are white and fat, and their skin is pink and tender.
In addition, the two children are almost identical, which looks very interesting and at the same time very fulfilling.
Since they haven't seen each other for nearly two months, Zhou Yang obviously can no longer tell which one is Dabao and which one is Xiaobao.
Fortunately, the shapes of the birthmarks of the two children are different. You can tell by turning them over and taking a look.
The two little guys didn't wake up until after six o'clock in the afternoon, and they are very energetic now.
Seeing their father looking at them, they all stretched out their little hands to grab Zhou Yang, babbling at the same time, not knowing what they wanted to express.
Zhou Yang picked up Dabao, teasing him and gently stroking his little face.
However, Xiaobao on the side seemed unhappy. He flattened his mouth and slowly began to "hum".
As soon as he heard this movement, Zhou Yang knew that this was the prelude to the coming storm.
Immediately, he hurriedly picked up Xiaobao.
The little guy suddenly felt weightless, and the next moment he found himself being picked up like his brother.
The originally protesting expression instantly turned into a smiling face, and with the "golden beans" that had not yet fallen from the corners of his eyes, he looked particularly cute.
In the dead of night, after struggling for three or four hours, the couple finally got their daughter to sleep and their son to sleep.
When all three children fell asleep, both of them breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, they looked at each other and smiled, and the atmosphere in the room instantly became ambiguous.
Immediately afterwards, the two of them slowly moved towards each other's position, as if they were being pulled by something.
Finally, the thunder from the sky stirred up the fire on the earth...
(Get cake: How to eat it in winter)
(Take cake: How to eat in summer)
(Mustard Pimples)
(Big vat pickles)
(Big vat of pickles)
(pickle jar)
(pickle press stone)
(Excellent cylinder stone)
(Friends from the north, please stay away!)
