Zhao’s mother said that the chestnuts she bought home were valuable. She had eaten them when she was in the capital, but rarely bought them after returning to the county town.
Rare and mostly expensive.
This thing is also troublesome to make. You have to pry open the hard shell before you can see the tender yellow chestnut flesh inside.
Li Rong sent the two younger ones to play and asked Daniel to help.
He Xing came back in the afternoon and had enough rest. She ran out to work on the vegetable patch and was not at home.
Zhao's mother also came to help and said: "If you buy so much, how can you eat it?"
Li Rong had just made one and looked up at her: "You'll know if you can eat it after you make it."
When Mother Zhao thought of Li Rong's excellent cooking skills, she said nothing and just smiled: "You can still cook it."
Ten pounds of chestnuts were prepared after the sun went down.
I took out some of the chestnuts and chestnut paste that I prepared earlier, and put them in to stew with the bone soup. After the chestnuts in the back were done, the chestnuts were stewed just right, soft, waxy and sweet.
Zhao’s mother asked Li Rong what she wanted to do with the remaining chestnuts.
Li Rong said: "It takes time to fiddle with it. Let's do it tomorrow."
"Okay," Mother Zhao rolled up her sleeves, "I'll go cook."
Li Rong cleaned up the chestnut shells on the ground and said, "Mom, go wash the rice. I bought beef and fish today. I will cook later."
She was also good at cooking, but Mother Zhao thought she was a student and didn't want her to enter the kitchen.
Li Rong was delighted when she heard this: "How can there be such a saying? It's not done every day."
In the evening, Zhao Qingsong came back and looked at the dishes on the table. He laughed and said, "This must be the food cooked by my wife."
Mother Zhao was setting the dishes and chopsticks: "Yes, Xiaorong's craftsmanship is still so good."
Li Rong made beef in sour soup tonight. The sour soup is made from sauerkraut pickled at home. The fish is steamed, but with green and red chili shreds on top, green onion and ginger shreds, pour it with hot oil, and roll the ingredients into shreds.
Get up, don't mention how beautiful it is.
I made a big plate of tomato scrambled eggs because my kids love it.
The Chinese cabbage that He Xing brought back from the fields and the chestnut paste were stir-fried with only oil and salt. They were both delicious.
Vinegar potato shreds, and a large pot of bone soup with red dates and chestnuts in it. The white soup is very sweet.
The whole family had a full meal, and the dishes and chopsticks afterward were not washed with chestnut paste.
Li Rong didn't argue. After eating for a while, she brought hot water and asked the little one to take a bath.
He won't wash the little one alone until the two cows get together.
The two little ones often take a bath together, but they don't share a basin of water.
He Xing listened to Er Niu's urgent urging, and smiled and said that he was as anxious as a monkey, but he still fetched him water quickly with his hands.
The two brothers were playing around in the courtyard, taking a bath and fetching water wands.
Li Rong looked at An An and sighed with emotion: "During the Chinese New Year, I had to have my mother help me with the washing. Now I can do it by myself. I don't know what I'll look like when I come back next time."
Zhao Qingsong came out of the room and happened to hear these somewhat lonely words. He put his arms around Li Rong's shoulders, only glanced at his own son, and then looked down at Li Rong: "No matter how old he is, he is still your son."
It was a very cold night in October. Li Rong was afraid that they would catch cold and thought the water would be cold, so she urged them to come out.
The little guy was naked and ran towards Li Rong.
Li Rong wrung out the towel, wiped the little guy's body, put on his clothes, and didn't allow him to go out and play anymore, as he would dirty his clothes later.
During the day, the little guy and his mother went to the store to play, then went shopping. When they came back, they went out to play with their friends in the village with Erniu, so they were already tired.
After getting dressed and yawning loudly, the little guy said, "I'm not going, I want to sleep."
When I woke up the next day, the people at home were still the same as yesterday.
But Li Rong doesn't plan to go to the county store today. She will be on leave in three or four days. Daniel and Erniu have to make up for their homework at home and won't go to the city to visit the store.
The little guy only stayed awake because of Li Rong yesterday. When Li Rong got up today, the little guy had already finished breakfast.
After Li Rong washed up, she had breakfast in the main room.
The older one and the younger one were doing their homework obediently, while the little one was scribbling with a pen beside him. It was really surprising that he was such a young child and could still sit still like this.
Daniel's face was as wrinkled as an old lady's. Li Rong glanced at him and said happily: "Why are you doing this to have a grudge against your homework?"
"This question is too difficult, I don't know how the teacher came up with it!" Daniel said sadly.
Li Rong couldn't quite remember what grade Daniel was in. Seeing that he was really stumped, she asked, "What grade are you in?"
"Third grade."
"The questions for third grade shouldn't be difficult."
Daniel looked at Li Rong sadly: "My second aunt is a college student, so it must not be difficult."
Li Rong blinked: "Then I am also in the third grade. It is only for college students to finish the questions first."
Daniel said nothing.
If a little boy of this age is not guided, he will definitely not be interested in learning in the future.
Li Rong thought for a moment and said, "Didn't you say you wanted to take a train to go to college before? These third-grade questions stumped you? What about junior high school? What about high school? If you don't study, you have to go to college.
Is there farming in the village?"
Daniel's shoulders slumped: "Why do you have to study for so many years? You might as well farm at home! Just use your strength!"
After Li Rong finished eating, she was not in a hurry to wash the dishes. She sat aside and said, "There is no money in farming."
Erniu suddenly said: "My second uncle has come back to farm. People outside say that my second uncle is rich!"
Li Rong smiled: "Your second uncle also went to school. When he came back to farm, he also did a big business. Although he farmed, he also hired others to do the work. If you don't study hard, you will be a farmer when you farm in the future.
Others farm the land. Do you want to hire others to farm the land, or do you want to farm the land yourself?”
"Which one has more money?"
"Of course I hire others to farm the land."
"Then I want to hire others to farm."
"So do you want to study hard?"
The brothers nodded sharply.
Li Rong: "If you don't understand any of the questions, you can ask the second aunt, but the second aunt will go out in two days. You have to learn to ask questions if you don't understand. Ask the teacher or classmates."
Seeing that they were concentrating on doing their homework again, Li Rong went to the kitchen to steam the chestnuts she peeled yesterday.
Mash the steamed chestnuts, stir-fry the chestnut puree in a pot with sugar and milk powder, and stir-fry it into a soft and sweet chestnut filling.
Knead the flour with lard and make a puff pastry.
Wrap the chestnut filling with puff pastry and press into a flat round cake shape, with at most a few sesame seeds on the outside.
Put the cake in the pan and fry until both sides are slightly browned. The chestnut cake is ready.
The skin of the prepared chestnut cake is so crispy that it falls apart, and the inside is filled with sweet and glutinous chestnut filling. One bite will make you want to swallow it all.
Before making the cake, Li Rong also put chestnuts in to boil sugar water.
When the cake is ready, the sugar water is also cooked.
The people working outside had not returned yet, so Li Rong filled several bowls of sugar water and a plate of chestnut cakes, and took them to the main room to eat with a few kids.
When Mrs. Zhao and the others came back, they saw chestnut cakes, which were very rare. They didn't eat much for lunch. They just drank chestnut syrup and ate a few cakes, which made their stomachs full.
When Zhao Qingsong came back, there were still a few pears in the straw hat.
Li Rong took a look and saw that those pears were not growing very well. She asked, "Are these the pears you planted?"
Zhao Qingsong nodded.
"Don't you think you are growing well?"
"The saplings are only in their third year of planting. They have to wait at least one or two years before they can bear good fruit. Of course, the fruit they bear now is not very good."
Li Rong didn't understand this, but it sounded normal, so she didn't worry too much. She washed the fruit and ate it: "Hey, it's quite sweet."
"If it's not sweet, can I pick it back for you to eat?" Zhao Qingsong replied while eating the sugar water.
Li Rong glanced at him and asked: "Is it sweeter, sugar water or pears?"
There was no one else around, so Zhao Qingsong seemed to have gotten through something and said, "You are the sweetest!"
Li Rong's face became hot and she said angrily: "Slick tongue!"