Chapter 11

“We are back.” Zhou Sen and Zhou Lei returned home with a chill. Zhou Pingguo hurriedly took the pork and put it into the water that had been prepared in advance.

Before Zhou Ping traveled through time, Zhou Sen was the one who went to buy meat after Zhou Erni’s death. He was shy at first and didn’t dare to bargain or choose.

But life is the best teacher. Zhou Sen now has first-class bargaining skills and is also good at judging ingredients.

The leg meat and pork belly they bought were both very good, and there was also a large piece of lard. Both of them were holding the meat in both hands and used their bodies to press down the door to come in.

Zhou Pingguo hurriedly took the meat and washed it in the well water that had been drawn in advance. After removing the blood, he smeared coarse salt, soy sauce and pepper on the smoked meat. The pork fat was also cut into large pieces and water was added to start boiling the lard.

Except for Zhou Jing, the whole family worked together and it didn’t take long before they finished it.

After leaving a small piece of pork, Zhou Pingguo found a Chinese cabbage. Although they don’t store hundreds of Chinese cabbages like in the north, they still have to prepare some before winter. There are also dried vegetables prepared in different seasons. Otherwise, in winter, without fresh vegetables, it is easy to bleed from the lips, which is caused by lack of vitamins. In serious cases, it may even cause sepsis.

People here also eat dumplings. Zhou Ping is actually from the north and eats dumplings more often. She has been craving for dumplings for a long time, so she discussed with the three kids and decided to eat dumplings in the evening.

Wash and chop the Chinese cabbage, add some salt to remove moisture, then chop the pork and put it into the Chinese cabbage, then add some soy sauce, sugar, salt and MSG, and stir. Last time when Zhou Pingguo went to the county, he met someone selling sesame oil, so he bought some and put a small spoonful of it in. The little flavor came out immediately.

The dumpling skins were prepared before the fillings were mixed. Cold water was poured into the flour, and the dough was kneaded and allowed to rise for half an hour. It was too cold outside, so Zhou Pingguo took the dough to the room where chives were grown. The temperature was just right. After half an hour, she took it out and kneaded it again. Then she could pinch it into small pieces and start rolling it into dumpling skins.

There was no rolling pin at home, so Zhou Pingguo found a canned fruit bottle. She was not used to it at first, but after a while she got used to it. The small dough was very obedient in her hands, and it could be turned into a dumpling skin in one to three seconds.

Zhou Pingguo rolled out the dumpling wrappers, and the others came to wrap them. Zhou Pingguo took a look and knew that the dumplings wrapped by the two people other than Zhou Lei would be exposed if they were boiled in water. At that time, these “odd-shaped” dumplings could be steamed. She didn’t want to spend half a day boiling a pot of pork, cabbage and noodle soup.

After all the dumpling wrappers were rolled out, Zhou Pingguo also started making dumplings. The dumplings she made had thin skins and lots of fillings, which made Zhou Lei’s eyes widen.

She came up to Zhou Pingguo and said, “Sister-in-law, sister-in-law, teach me, teach me. Look, I can’t wrap this up no matter how hard I try. If I put more stuffing in, it will burst.”

Zhou Pingguo gave him some pointers while Zhou Lei studied it slowly on the side.

After a while, he came to Zhou Pingguo like offering a treasure, “Sister-in-law, how about this?”

Zhou Pingguo took his dumplings and looked at them carefully. “Not bad, not bad!”

Zhou Lei put the dumplings on the plate with satisfaction and continued his work.

“You guys take your time wrapping the rest. I’ll take these in and cook them for dinner later. You can eat the ones you wrap later tomorrow morning.”

It’s cold now, so it’s definitely no problem to spend the night there.

There was not much vinegar left at home, so Zhou Pingguo poured out all the vinegar. For her, eating dumplings without dipping them in vinegar was almost the same as not eating them at all.

It would be better to chop two more garlics, but she was asked to use all the garlic at home to grow garlic seedlings, and she could only plant some more in the field next year.

The dumplings didn’t break after steaming, but because of the small amount of filling and thick skin, they were really not tasty. However, the dumplings made by oneself definitely tasted different. Zhou Jing and Zhou Sen ate mostly steamed dumplings, and they had to say, “Not bad, not bad.”

Zhou Pingguo was afraid that Zhou Jing might choke, so she quickly filled a bowl of dumpling soup for him. “Eat it right away. Eat slowly. No one’s rushing you anyway, so just eat slowly.”

Seven days later, Zhou Pingguo went to deliver leeks, this time also weighing about 50 jin, and the price had risen again, to 4.8 yuan per jin. However, Tao Zaishan told her that if she could get another delivery before the Chinese New Year, the price would not go up any more, so it would be about the same. After the Chinese New Year, the price would definitely drop, at most 4 yuan per jin.

Zhou Pingguo can understand that this is how it is during the Chinese New Year. Everything will be more expensive before the Chinese New Year. After all, everyone works hard all year just for this reunion dinner. After the Chinese New Year, life actually returns to normal, and many people start to save money again. They will not be willing to spend money until the next Spring Festival.

After bringing the money home, the house was more lively than usual. Zhou Pingguo parked the car and came over. It turned out that the fields that their family had sublet were to be used to provide them with food rations according to Zhou Erni’s original request.

Usually they are shipped here before the Chinese New Year. But there is a problem, that is, they don’t have good storage conditions. For example, the food they eat now has a moldy smell, and some even have rice weevils.

After Zhou Pingguo and others left, he talked about this issue with Zhou Sen.

“What should I do?” Zhou Sen asked. He used to eat like this, as long as it was edible. But recently his appetite has become a bit picky, and there is still a difference between fresh and stale food.

“I go to the town and the county town quite often anyway, so I’ll go to the grain station to inquire more often. If the price is right, we’ll sell some and buy more when we need to eat. It will definitely be more expensive, but it’s fresher.” Going to the grain station would definitely make a profit from the price difference, but Zhou Pingguo has become accustomed to buying only as much as she eats. It seems that she doesn’t have to worry about storing so much grain at home, but she has to protect it from rats, mold, and insects, which is really troublesome.

“Okay.” Zhou Sen gritted his teeth and agreed. He had eaten moldy sweet potatoes once before and had diarrhea for three days. He was reluctant to see a doctor and was almost dead. He didn’t want his younger brothers and sisters to suffer the same fate.

Everything would be fine as long as Zhou Sen could be convinced. After all, the two children were still too young and had little say. When they grew up a little, we would have to discuss things with them seriously.

Zhou Pingguo thinks she is very democratic. Well, consultative democracy is also democracy. As for her mouth as a deceiving intermediary, she can turn black into white. Isn’t that her ability?

But we have to wait until the price is good before selling. It is definitely not possible to sell it now because there are many people selling grain now. We have to wait a little longer.

In fact, Zhou Pingguo wanted to ask the tenants to exchange the money for cash later, but the pace of reform and opening up had not yet reached that level, and she was afraid that the policy was not appropriate. She could only keep the grain at home and sell it slowly later.