Xu Shiyan carried a bowl of vegetables home to accompany his wife, but did not return to the Xu family in the evening.
Most of the noisy young people in the village got drunk at noon, went home and fell asleep with their heads covered, and did not get up at night.
Only a few people came over in the evening, and with Zhou Guilan watching from the side, these people were too embarrassed to make a fuss about the wedding, so they just sat there chatting for a while and then left.
After two days of turmoil, it finally became peaceful and quiet. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and had a good sleep at night.
This year is the New Year's Eve, the 29th of the twelfth lunar month, and the wedding ceremony will be completed immediately followed by the New Year's Eve.
Fortunately, the Xu family has nothing to do. They can just wait for the New Year in peace.
Because it had been said in advance that the family would be separated after the new year, Xu Chenghou said that Xu Shiyan and his wife must come back for New Year's Eve this year.
In this way, Xu Shiyan and his wife have nothing to do, they just need to clean up the house and prepare some food.
In a blink of an eye, it was the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, and at nine o'clock in the morning, Xu Shiyan took his wife home to help with the housework.
The brothers erected a lantern pole in the yard and hung the red lanterns Xu Shiqin had made.
Then he cut out red paper, and Xu Shide used a large bucket brush to write couplets, the characters "福", spring strips, etc.
Gates, house doors, barns, pig pens, and chicken coops are all affixed.
The warehouse is full of grain, the pigsty is full of fat pigs, the henhouse is full of golden roosters, what else is there to see when you go out and look up for joy?
Posting this circle, the New Year flavor is stronger. Together with the window grilles with the word "Happy" posted before, the whole yard is bright red, adding to the joy.
I was busy posting couplets outside, and I was busy cooking at home. According to the rules of the Xu family, there are three meals on New Year's Eve.
I eat whatever I want in the morning, have a reunion dinner around four in the afternoon, and make dumplings in the evening to watch the New Year.
There are four daughters-in-law in the family, Su Anying is almost seven months pregnant, and Wu Qiuyan is more than three months pregnant.
The two pregnant women couldn't do much work, they could only help wash the vegetables, chop onions and garlic, etc. The main work was done by Zhou Guilan, Xue Xiulin and Wei Mingrong.
The New Year's Eve reunion dinner is a big event all year long.
Therefore, Zhou Guilan had to cook the stove herself, and she also had to cook some dishes that she couldn't eat on weekdays.
For example, the Xu family's traditional dishes, muddy chicken and bergamot cabbage, are must-haves every year.
Mutton chicken is actually chopped chicken into pieces, marinated with seasonings, then coated in batter and fried.
By doing this, a chicken can be fried into a pot and then stewed in soup.
No one can tell which piece of meat is in the batter, so it is called confused chicken.
In fact, this is the solution I had to come up with in these difficult years.
It doesn't take much to stew a chicken directly, but you can make a big pot of it and eat it.
Bergamot cabbage is simple. Blanch the cabbage in boiling water and slice it into thin slices.
Score a few times along the veins of the leaves, wrap the meat filling inside, and steam it in a pot.
In this way, the cabbage absorbs the umami flavor of the meat filling and softens the greasiness of the meat, making it fragrant and sweet.
In addition to these two traditional dishes, there are also rabbit meat stewed with potatoes, large bones stewed with sauerkraut, stir-fried roe deer meat, croquettes, mushrooms and dried fruit platter, skin jelly, pig's trotters, braised thin-scale fish, sweet and sour pork ribs, exactly ten dishes.
Perfect.
The rabbit meat and roe deer meat were naturally brought back by Xu Shiyan before, and he also fished the fine-scaled fish on the river by breaking holes in the ice.
There is a fish in the reunion dinner, which means there will be plenty every year, which means good things.
"Thankfully, we didn't eat all the meat that the third brother brought back, we just kept it for the New Year.
This year, these ten dishes are all hard dishes, so the children can eat them freely."
Zhou Guilan had decided on the menu early, and while busy frying chicken, she was talking to Xue Xiulin and the others.
Xue Xiulin was cutting pickled vegetables over there. Listening to her mother-in-law praising her brother-in-law, she stopped cutting vegetables.
In the past, this third brother-in-law was the most insignificant person in the family. He was silent and inconspicuous on weekdays.
But now, the third brother-in-law is the one whom the parents-in-law praise the most.
Why didn't you think that your third brother-in-law was so capable before?
"Mom, if you didn't tell me, I forgot to ask, who did the third child learn to hunt from? No one in our family knows how to do this, and no one teaches him how he can do it?"
Xue Xiulin was confused, as if her brother-in-law had changed since he got married.
Zhou Guilan stopped frying chicken and said, "Yeah, I really forgot to ask, who did the third child learn this skill from?
In the past, I only saw him catching fish and shrimps. I wonder if he can also hunt? I really need to ask him now that I have time."
After saying this, Zhou Guilan also became curious. Yes, no one in the Xu family knows this. Who did the third child learn it from?
The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were busy cooking and frying in the kitchen while chatting.
It was not until after three o'clock in the afternoon that various dishes were prepared and served on the table.
There were many people in the family, so there were still two tables on the South Kang and the North Kang. Mr. and Mrs. Xu Chenghou, their sons, and the two new daughters-in-law who came into the family this year ate at the South Kang.
Xue Xiulin, Wei Mingrong, and Xu Shiqin were at Beikang with a group of children. Both tables had the same dishes, so you could eat whatever you wanted.
Xu Shiyan looked at the table and saw that it was all meat and vegetables. He quickly asked his mother.
"Mom, I remember last time I brought back some yam pear dumplings, grape cakes, mountain red skin and so on, right?
Where did you put it? Find it, soak it in water, put it in a pot and steam it.
This dish is good, but if you eat it this way, I'm afraid the children will suffer from indigestion."
If these dishes were made the same on a normal day and mixed with other dishes, it would be nothing.
But if you put them all on the table at once, you might worry that the children won’t eat enough and will easily suffer from indigestion.
It would be bad if I have diarrhea tomorrow morning.
Shanlihong is wild hawthorn, which has the effect of strengthening the spleen and stomach and promoting digestion. The grape cake is sour and sweet, appetizing and relieving greasiness.
Put them all in a basin and add water to steam them, just like drinking juice, which is good for children.
"Oh, look at me, I have forgotten this problem.
Just thinking about how rare it is to have so many delicious foods, I let the children eat freely, forgetting that they have weak spleen and stomach."
Zhou Guilan was reminded by her son and suddenly realized.
Isn't that right? Even if the family does not lose fuel and water this winter, the stomach is still empty after all.
If you eat like this, adults may be okay with it, but how can children stand it?
So Zhou Guilan quickly went to the ground and rummaged through the cabinet to find the things Xu Shiyan had brought back before.
Take out some pear dumplings, mountain grape cakes, mountain red skins, etc. and put them in a basin. Wash them twice with water, then add water and put them in a pot to steam.
Xu Chenghou watched his wife busy at work and suddenly remembered the situation in his hometown in Kuandian.
"Well, when I was young, our family was still working in a silver mine, and you would make these in the autumn.
It's the same thing during the Chinese New Year. Steam it in a pot, it's sour and sweet, and it tastes great."
"Our family's conditions were pretty good at that time. We had dozens of acres of land and a large orchard with all kinds of peaches, sand fruits, and pears.
There are so many pear trees in our house, they cover the entire ridge, with sour tips, flat-top fragrant pears, flower-covered pears, frozen pears, all kinds of varieties."
Xu Chenghou seemed to have touched some switch and talked about things in his hometown.