Farmer's eldest sister becomes rich

Chapter 161 Drying Bamboo Shoots

After Qin and her grandmother Zheng finished their meal, they sat together, talking and laughing about something.

Seeing that everyone had started working, the two of them stood up and helped clean up the after-dinner battlefield.

Qin collected the bowl and said jokingly, "It looks like we'll need a few more pairs of chopsticks for tomorrow's lunch!"

Zheng responded, "Yes, the villagers are very honest!"

Grandmother Zheng turned to An Yue and said, "Yueyue, tomorrow morning, I will bring you some eggs and pork. If the food is more delicious, the workers will work harder."

An Yue was washing the dishes and said, "Yes, more pairs of chopsticks means more people to work. Then Yue Yue will thank grandma!"

While chatting and laughing, the three of them were busy working and soon they had washed the dishes.

After washing the dishes, Qin and her grandmother Zheng each took a sickle and walked straight towards the wasteland.

There are three acres of wasteland in total. If we add a few more people tomorrow, I think we can clear all the weeds within three to five days.

After being busy for a long time, An Yue felt a little tired. She found a place with dense dry grass and sat down, planning to take a short rest.

As soon as I sat down, my mind suddenly remembered the small shed I had wanted to build earlier.

She walked gently to her grandfather, the village chief, squatted down and said to them: "Grandfather, uncle, Yueyue wants to..."

After talking about building the shed, An Yue returned to where she was sitting before.

There were always a lot of messy things coming to her mind, and she couldn't help but think about what to eat for lunch tomorrow.

Today we have fried eggs with Chinese toon sprouts and fried pork with spring bamboo shoots. We can’t eat the same dishes every day! So what are we going to cook tomorrow?

Just when she was frowning, she turned her head inadvertently and saw her grandmother Zhou and her aunt Zhang standing not far away. They were gesticulating in this direction, as if they were talking about something.

An Yue pretended not to see the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. She had no time to pay attention to their pointing and criticizing. She might as well do more practical things with that time.

Now they don't have any extra money to build houses, so they can only watch helplessly. With the village chief and grandfather here, they can't do anything.

The weather has been getting warmer recently, and many wild vegetables are growing very fast.

There were no refrigerators in this era, and delicious food was not easy to store. An Yue could only watch the wild vegetables get older day by day until they could no longer be eaten. She felt helpless.

The spring bamboo shoots on the back mountain can grow three to five inches tall a day. In just a few days, the small bamboo shoots will turn into small bamboos.

On second thought, the weather has been warm and sunny these days, so why not go to the mountains and dig some more bamboo shoots while they are still fresh?

I will definitely find a way to preserve them, but at the moment An Yue can only think of two ways to preserve bamboo shoots.

One is to pickle sour bamboo shoots, and the other is to make dried bamboo shoots.

To pickle sour bamboo shoots, you first need a well-sealed jar, as well as salt and pepper, which is obviously inconvenient given current living conditions.

It is feasible to make dried bamboo shoots. Just pick more tender bamboo shoots from the back mountain, peel off the shells, cut into thin strips, and dry them in the sun.

The key is that dried bamboo shoots are not complicated to make. They can be stored for a long time after drying. Whenever you want to eat them, just soak them in warm water for an hour.

After soaking, the taste is extremely delicious when stir-fried with meat or stewed in bone soup, and is no worse than fresh bamboo shoots.

There are ways to store bamboo shoots, but the most delicious toon sprouts will turn into leaves in a few days, which is a pity just thinking about it.

An Yue held her chin and thought hard.

Suddenly I remembered that I had accidentally seen it when I was watching short videos on a certain platform before.

Some are blanched, sealed and stored in the refrigerator, while others are rubbed with salt and directly dried in the sun. Under current conditions, we can only try the method of direct drying.

Just do it when you think of it. Since the village chief is helping to watch over the digging of the septic tank, An Yue simply picks up the backpack and prepares to go to the back mountain to pick bamboo shoots.

Now this back mountain has been bought by An Yue. It belongs to her personally and she can do whatever she wants with it.

Grandmother Zheng was sharp-eyed. Seeing An Yue preparing to leave with the basket on her back, she quickly asked, "Yueyue, where are you going?"

An Yue stopped and turned to her grandmother and said, "Yueyue wants to go to the back mountain to pick spring bamboo shoots."

"Then you should wait for grandma too. Grandma will go with you."

After saying this, the grandmother turned to Qin and said a few simple words, then quickly ran to get the backpack.

An Yue knew that her grandmother was worried about her going to the back mountain alone.

The grandfather and grandson, each carrying a backpack, walked towards the back mountain.

Walking along the edge of the back mountain, An Yue and her grandmother looked around and actually saw honeysuckle with small tender leaves just growing from the vines, as well as gardenia and forsythia.

This season is when Forsythia blooms, and the golden yellow flowers are very eye-catching.

It seemed like after a short while, they arrived at the bamboo forest.

An Yue had previously dug up the Ophiopogon japonicus beside the bamboo forest, and now only half of it was left. She planned to dig it up, dry it, and exchange it for money after the house was built.

The bamboo forest here is several acres wide, and the further you go in, the denser the ferns become.

Because the ferns dry up year after year and are turned into natural fertilizer, the bamboos in this bamboo forest grow exceptionally thick and strong.

Of course, with fertile soil and sufficient nutrients, the spring bamboo shoots will naturally not be bad. They rise from the soil and are of different heights.

An Yue vaguely remembered this bamboo forest. The last time she and Gu Mingchuan went digging Ophiopogon japonicus, her foot was pricked by the tip of a newly emerged bamboo shoot.

An Yue couldn't help but sigh in her heart: [Only a few short days have passed, but looking back, it feels like many months have passed.]

She looked at the bamboo shoots that had just emerged from the ground. They were like little elves in the mountains, waving at her. They were playful and cute, and very pleasing to the eye.

An Yue bent her knees slightly and began to pick the bamboo shoots impatiently.

"Yueyue, how many bamboo shoots do we need to break?"

An Yue replied without hesitation: "Of course the more the better!"

"If we take too much back and can't finish it, isn't it a waste?"

"Break them and dry them into bamboo shoots, they are delicious!"

Although grandma Zheng didn't know where all these strange ideas came from in An Yue's mind.

But when I thought about the delicious taste of bamboo shoots stewed with meat at noon, I didn't ask any more questions.

Half an hour later, the backpacks of the grandfather and grandson were filled to the brim.

They returned to the wasteland carrying the baskets on their backs.

——A quarter of an hour passed.

Return to the wasteland.

An Yue taught her grandmother how to peel bamboo shoots, demonstrating: "Just like this, use a kitchen knife to cut the outer shell of the bamboo shoots. The force should not be too light or too heavy, and then peel the bamboo shoots with your hands, leaving the most tender part."

Grandma followed An Yue and tried several times, but either the strokes were too deep or too shallow, so she simply gave up trying.

Grandmother Zheng smiled bitterly and said: