kvmb Chapter 114 Dried Fruit in Syrup
Chapter 114 Dried Fruit in Syrup
The finished candles were put into bamboo tubes. She didn't break them open and collect them yet. She would wait until tomorrow when she found some bamboo, make that batch, and then break them open and collect them all together.
At this moment, she was busy processing the wild fruits.
Before doing so, she habitually went to the bottom of the tiankeng to look at the night sky.
Her grandmother taught her one thing since she was a child, which is to predict the weather for the next day by looking at the stars. If there are many stars, it is very likely that it will not rain the next day.
Very good, the night sky is full of stars tonight and a bright moon hangs high in the sky.
She went back to process the wild fruits with peace of mind, picked out the hard kiwis, peeled them, cut them into thick slices, poured honey and mixed them well to marinate.
Wash, peel and core the wild apples, cut half of them in half, cut one apple into quarters and remove the core in the middle.
Apples oxidize easily, so after cutting some, you need to pour honey on them and mix them.
It took her more than an hour to load three large backpacks and more than a sack of wild apples.
The kiwis and wild apples will be marinated with honey and then dried in the sun, and the persimmons will be prepared and dried tomorrow.
It was already past eight o'clock when she finished her work. She washed and went to bed, removed the straw mat, spread a thin quilt, and covered it with a sheet cut from cotton cloth.
She lay in bed, feeling the softness of the blanket beneath her and smelling the scent of sunshine.
The bedding and sheets were freshly washed and exposed to the sun.
It was a bit hot in the first half of the night, so she tossed and turned and didn't sleep well. It became cold in the second half of the night, and it was just right after she covered herself with a quilt.
As usual, she got up at around five in the morning, before it was light, took her machete and went out to cut bamboo.
The bamboos we cut were all thin, and we carried back twelve at a time, which was enough.
It was still early, so she raced against time and jumped into the foundation pit to dig until the sun came out.
She cooked the only handful of vermicelli left, ate it quickly, and then busied herself with removing the stems and peeling the persimmons.
Han Zhibai didn't want the persimmons, so she shared them equally with the Li family and got three backpacks and more than two sacks, which weighed more than two hundred kilograms in total.
The peeled persimmons have a strong fruity aroma. Put them into the boiling water in the pot and soak for about ten seconds. Take them out and put them into a colander and dustpan to drain. There are quite a lot of persimmons, so this operation was repeated more than twenty times.
The skin of the persimmons that had been soaked first had lost all the moisture. Each persimmon was cut into four pieces, each slice being more than a finger thick. They were spread flat on a bamboo raft, filling a row, and then taken to the rocks at the bottom of the sinkhole to dry in the hot sun.
There were the most persimmons, and after they were cut, they were placed on eleven bamboo rafts.
Fortunately, we had made enough bamboo rafts in the tiankeng before, otherwise they would not be enough.
Take out the kiwi and wild apples that have been pickled overnight and drain them.
Keep the juice and don't waste it. Pour it into an iron pot and simmer over low heat until you get a thick, stringy sugar liquid.
The kiwifruit sugar liquid is yellow, about 200 milliliters.
The wild apple one is light yellow and weighs over 300 milliliters.
Smelling the fruity aroma, she mixed some kiwi syrup with boiled water. It was 90% sweet and 10% sour, and it was quite appetizing and refreshing to drink.
The sugar liquid is put into a small ceramic jar and sealed with a lid. It can replace white sugar and can be soaked in water for drinking, or used as sugar for cooking to add flavor.
The kiwi and wild apples were spread out on a bamboo raft and a large round winnowing basket. There was still a little flesh left, not enough to spread out, but after much thought, there was really no suitable container to spread them out.
She had no choice but to use several plates to cover the ground, but it was still barely enough.
When drying fruits, they need to be turned over frequently. She turned over the persimmons that were laid out at the beginning, and the skin of the side that had been dried was slightly dry.
When I turned over, it was already past noon.
She was so hot under the scorching sun that wearing a straw hat didn't help. Plus, her stomach was protesting, so she thought about going home to make lunch and eating it first.
For lunch, she cooked some dry rice and rice soup. The dishes included steamed dried fish, a dried rabbit given by the Li family, and stir-fried Chinese cabbage.
The dried rabbit given by the Li family was not marinated with any seasoning. She was afraid that it would go bad easily, so she often took it out to dry and ventilate it. Today she was busy and had no time to make a complicated dish, so she simply steamed it and gave it to Heihei to eat.
The dried fish she ate was pickled.
After a quick lunch, she couldn't take a nap, so she took a low stool, a palm-leaf fan, and a long wooden stick tied with straw, and sat in the shade for the whole afternoon, waving the stick to drive away flies and insects, or turning over dried fruits.
The soap beans, cinnamon, star anise and walnuts that were found earlier are also being dried in the sun. The drier they are, the darker their color becomes.
Looking at the dried fruits, bored, Heihei fell asleep beside her. She dozed off for a while and raised her hand to rub her sleepy eyes.
Afraid that she might accidentally fall asleep, she stood up and planned to wash her face with cold water. Thinking of water, she subconsciously looked towards the nearest well.
In the big pond, a well is particularly eye-catching.
"This won't do. It looks too ugly." She walked toward the pond and went down the dug steps.
"Why not just make the well separate?" In this way, the pond was reduced in size.
She walked to the well and estimated what to do. She planned to get more soil to build a wall to separate the well and block the pond. Then she would repair the surrounding area to make it look better.
"Yes, this is totally feasible. It will make it much easier to drain the pond later!"
It is closer to draw water from the pond to water the vegetable garden, but it is closer to draw water from the well to water the land for growing sweet potatoes and paddy camellia.
There is a wooden barrel next to the well, and the water level is more than two meters below the well mouth. I pull it up with a rope, scoop water with both hands to wash my face, and the cold water splashes on my skin, making me feel refreshed instantly.
She went back to turn the dried fruits over, and then waved a wooden stick to drive away flies and insects.
By the evening, the smaller kiwis were about 70% to 80% dried, while the slightly larger wild apples and persimmons were about 50% dried. The skin was dry when squeezed, but soft inside.
After being dried in the sun for most of the day, the dried fruits that were originally crowded on the bamboo raft have shrunk a bit and are now much looser.
The three kinds of dried fruits were received in different ceramic jars and will be dried tomorrow.
Before cooking dinner, she split the bamboo tubes and heated the remaining wax to make candles.
For dinner, I fried the leftover rice from lunch with scallion oil, chopped up some Chinese cabbage, and fried it with eggs. To avoid getting too sick of it, I cooked a bowl of sweet and delicious pumpkin and also grabbed some kimchi from the jar.
After eating them, she still thinks the fried rice made with mushroom oil is the best, while scallion oil is more suitable for mixing noodles and rice noodles.
Finally, I finished my dinner with a sip of the sweet pumpkin soup.
After washing and fixing things up, she sat on a low stool and used a machete to break the bamboo, took out the candles, and dried the discarded bamboo for burning.
The whole candle is white, not much different from the previous life.
She used two-thirds of the tung oil fruits she brought back, kept some, and made eighty candles with one hundred kilograms of the fruits.
Compared with beeswax candles, tung oil tree candles are shorter and thinner.
She estimated that a beeswax candle would burn for about fifty minutes.
A tung oil tree candle can burn for about half an hour.
That is to say, if she divided it equally, she would get forty cigarettes. If she lit one every day, it would only be enough for forty days.