Across Ranch Story: Friends of Mineral Town

The two fishing nets caught a lot of fish, shrimps, crabs, etc. that rushed down from upstream, both big and small. Lin Xia picked out the big ones and put them into the buckets he brought; the three shrimp cages also had a lot of goods in them. Although they were shrimp cages, there were not only shrimps in them, but also smaller black fish, longspined fish, eels and loaches.

Lin Xia picked it up happily, cleaned the shrimp cage, put bait in each hole again, and threw it into different ditches. When she fished it out tomorrow morning, the harvest should be more than this time!

Black fish can also be caught during normal fishing, and their size is much larger than this, so Lin Xia threw the small black fish in the net back into the river, but kept the longspined fish, yellow eel and loach. Those that got into the shrimp cage were not small in size, so Lin Xia planned to keep them for later use in making soup, or stewing tofu with mushrooms.

After packing up, Lin Xia finally went home. She had eaten too much at the Harvest Festival, so she didn't eat too much at night. She made some light soup or cooked some wontons.

Although she doesn’t eat much, she plans to clean and cook some of the river fish she harvested today so that she can eat it anytime in the future!

Snails and loaches need to spit out mud for a few days, but crayfish and river shrimps do not need this. After scrubbing them clean, the river shrimps themselves are very delicious. Half of them can be made into salt water and topped with green onions and ginger slices. You can eat them without dipping them in anything, or you can dip them in your favorite sauce; the other half can be made into iron plate garlic sauce, which is fragrant.

Crayfish must be cooked spicy and with garlic paste. In fact, the thirteen-spice one is also delicious, but Lin Xia doesn’t know the recipe. The spicy and garlic ones are the simplest.

The crayfish harvested today were not many, only about five or six pounds in total, but fortunately they were not small in size, so Lin Xia could make a small pot of each flavor. These crayfish definitely wouldn’t take up too much space in her stomach, so she could use them as a midnight snack at night, hehe…

There were two large eels and seven or eight small ones. Lin Xia put the large ones in the refrigerator, deboned and sliced ​​the small ones, and used the head and tail to make a small bowl of milky white soup to drink in the evening. She also fried the eel slices with the green peppers she had just harvested yesterday and put them away to eat with rice tomorrow. She used to like spicy fried eel slices, which were more appetizing than braised eel slices.

The river clams caught today were not very big, at least not as big as the previous ones. Lin Xia simply used props to pry open the clam shells. Fortunately, she also found a few small pearls with a diameter of only about 1 cm. They were all white, a total of 5. Lin Xia washed them and put them away, and would make them into a bracelet when she had enough.

Then the clam meat was picked out and the internal organs and dirt were cleaned out, and Lin Xia began to beat one of the pieces of meat.

There is no other way. Clam meat is special. If you cook it directly in the pot, the meat will become tougher and harder to chew. If you want to keep the clam meat tender or soft, you must first pat it with a knife to loosen the meat. Then, blanch the clam meat in boiling water to remove blood and impurities, remove it and drain it, and then cook it in different ways. The meat will be very delicious.

After Lin Xia did the manual operation herself, she handed the remaining clams to the smart kitchen. After the kitchen had prepared all the clam meat, Lin Xia used the not-so-large amount of clam meat to make two dishes, one stir-fried and the other a stew.

When stir-frying the clam meat, Lin Xia did not add any other side dishes. She just heated the pan with cold oil, added onions, ginger and garlic to stir-fry, then added appropriate amounts of cooking wine and light soy sauce and stir-fried well. She then put the clam meat into the pan and quickly stir-fried it so that it was evenly coated with the seasonings. Then she took a bite and it was delicious, fresh, fragrant and tender.

Lin Xia added a lot of side dishes to the clam soup, including fresh bamboo shoots in spring, mushrooms in autumn, dried black fungus, and kelp caught from the sea. In short, the soup almost made Lin Xia's tongue fall off, and the clam meat was also super delicious.

I have to say, seafood and wild delicacies are really amazing!

Although there were 7 clams, after removing the internal organs and other undigested things, there was not much pure clam meat left. Lin Xia barely managed to make a small plate of stir-fried clams and a bowl of clam soup with appropriate side dishes. It was not advisable to eat too much at night, so these two portions were also put into the space and eaten later.

The rest cannot be made today as they are all used to clean the intestines. After the loaches have spit out all the mud and sand, clean them and coat them with egg liquid and breadcrumbs and fry them!

After the small snails (about 3-4 cm in size) have spit out all the mud and sand, Lin Xia will make spicy snails. Is this also a good snack, or a side dish? After the big ones (the size of an adult's fist) have spit out all the mud and sand, Lin Xia will add onion and ginger to boil them, and then eat them with sauce, or cut them into strips and mix them cold, or stir-fry them.

Today was all about eating. It was also Lin Xia's first Harvest Festival since coming to Mineral Town. It was quite fulfilling. Tomorrow, she would go to the square to see the sale that Huo An had specially organized for the masquerade. That was also very exciting!

The next day, the eggplants, red beans and cabbages were ripe. As usual, Lin Xia harvested one acre of each for his own consumption, and asked the dwarfs to ship the rest directly.

Cabbage is also a disposable crop and needs to be replanted after the harvest. At the same time, the 8 acres of spinach land originally reserved was planted with cabbage because there were no seeds. After the harvest today, I have to go to the grocery store to buy spinach seeds and plant them again.

Fortunately, today is Saturday and there is no holiday (Huo An’s private sale does not affect the business of other stores), otherwise the grocery store would be closed again.

After harvesting the crops for my own consumption, I took Ah Huang and Da Zhuang to the back mountain for some exercise as usual. I didn’t have time yesterday, so today I have to go to the back mountain to look for mushrooms after the rain.

Lin Xia was not disappointed this time. She found a lot of shiitake mushrooms, straw mushrooms, button mushrooms, matsutake mushrooms, etc. In addition to the common black fungus, she also found a large area of ​​white fungus (tremella). Lin Xia was overjoyed. The red beans had just been harvested, so she could make red bean and tremella soup when she got home!

In addition, under the unintentional guidance of Ah Huang and Da Zhuang, Lin Xia also found a lot of mushrooms that he had never seen before. He only knew that they were non-toxic and edible, so Lin Xia picked them all. Later, he learned from the "Encyclopedia of Fungi" in the library that these fungi were Hericium erinaceus, blood-red rivet mushroom, and Stropharia rugosus, all of which have high medicinal and edible value.

Lin Xia accepted all mushrooms, as long as they were non-toxic, he would pick them up as soon as he saw them. After more than two hours in the mountains, he only explored a small area. There were so many mushrooms that popped up after the rain that he could not pick them all.

Lin Xia left the woods around 10 a.m. after picking the fruits. She had to plant the cabbage first and also go to the grocery store to buy spinach seeds. They had to be planted today, otherwise it would delay the farming season.

After coming out, they trotted back all the way. Ah Huang and Da Zhuang were not brought back. Lin Xia asked Da Zhuang to take Ah Huang on a one-day tour in the forest. In the afternoon, Lin Xia would go to the mountains to continue picking mushrooms. Such a good opportunity could not be missed. If she couldn’t finish eating them, she could sell some to Dart and Huo An!

Speaking of Huo An, well, after buying the spinach seeds, you can stop by his sale. It shouldn't take too long to buy some props for the masquerade.

When Lin Xia returned to the ranch, the dwarfs had already harvested 20 acres of cabbage at Lin Xia's request, and the land was cleared. Lin Xia sowed cabbage seeds on 12 acres of land again and left the remaining 8 acres for spinach.

Sowing the seeds was quick, and it was done in half an hour. I immediately ran to the grocery store to find Jeff and bought 99 bags (200g/bag) of spinach seeds, spending 1.98g. However, Jeff was absent-minded while collecting the money.

Lin Xia asked curiously, "What's wrong with you?"

Jeff: "I'm not anxious."

Lin Xia: "Why are you in such a hurry? I don't think there are many people in the store."

Jeff: "It's just that there aren't many people. Sasha said she would take Kallen to Huoan's sale to buy some costumes and props for the masquerade. She's been gone for more than two hours and she hasn't come back yet. The same goes for the others~"

Lin Xia: "Don't worry, although Huo An looks a bit wretched, he is still a decent person. You don't have to worry about their safety~"

Jeff was surprised: "I'm not worried, but they have been gone for so long, it's time for me to come back and choose. Now so many people have gone, what if there is no suitable one by the time I go..."

Lin Xia: ... Sorry to bother you~