I fell through the tunnel and brought my family to live a good life

Xu Congyi's pace of life has become leisurely recently, and there is nothing particularly busy to deal with. Looking at the sunshine outside the window, the blue sky and the gentle breeze, it is a good time to make some handicrafts, so she decided to take advantage of the good weather these days to make beetroot powder.

There are less than two months left until the Chinese New Year, and the festive atmosphere is gradually getting stronger. Xu Congyi has already begun to think about how to add some new ideas to the upcoming New Year. The last time she went to the kitchen of Tangji Pastry, she accidentally discovered a detail. Although Tangji Pastry can make colorful pastries, the source of those colors is quite primitive - they are all made by soaking in water and boiling them into a thick consistency. For example, the refreshing green is actually spinach water; and the bright red and purple are the result of red rice water and black rice water, but the coloring effect is relatively light and not bright enough.

Xu Cong thought to herself that Tangji was already the largest and best pastry shop in Qicheng. If it was still like this, let alone other pastry shops, whose pastries were almost all more traditional white pastries with a single color and lacked novelty. Thinking of this, she suddenly came up with a brilliant idea. Beetroot powder is easy to make and has a very good coloring effect, with bright and long-lasting colors. If beetroot powder is used to color and make "New Year limited" pastries, it will definitely attract the attention of many customers and sell well.

Long ago, Xu Congyi asked his grandfather and father to weave many large and sturdy bamboo dustpans, and stored them properly in the warehouse for use. He also specifically asked that the bottom be raised by bamboo about 20 centimeters. In this way, even if the bamboo dustpan is placed on the ground, it can maintain good ventilation and prevent moisture and mildew. Old man Xu and hunter Xu are both masters of bamboo weaving, and their craftsmanship is well-known in the village. However, in this era, almost every household can weave bamboo, so it is difficult to sell it at a high price. Despite this, Xu Congyi does not care, because she values ​​the practicality and durability of the bamboo dustpan, not its commercial value. It is worth mentioning that there is no concept of "planned obsolescence" in this era. People strive to make things durable, and various bamboo weavings are no exception. They are not only sturdy and durable, but also beautiful and generous. One can be used for many years without breaking.

The beets were all harvested and piled up in the cellar. In the past, they would not harvest beets, after all, the main purpose of growing beets was to feed pigs. But since they knew the role of beets, the Xu family was reluctant to waste them. Although the family only had one acre of beet field, beets were high-yield crops, and the original cellar could not hold them at all, so they dug a big hole under the large piece of land they bought and built a simple cellar to store beets.

The amount of white beets was far greater than that of red beets, but after learning how to make sugar, Xu's mother and Li Dahua would make a batch whenever they had time, so there were not so many white beets. They were kept in the cellar that they usually used, and the red beets were kept in a simple cellar waiting for Xu Congyi to take them out whenever he needed them.

Because Xu Congyi used white sugar bought from the space when making popcorn, she used the excuse that it was sent by Tang Wenhao to ensure the quality, and her family believed it. Sometimes when Xu Congyi was cooking in the kitchen, she was too lazy to bring the sugar cubes, so she just used the ready-made white sugar in the space. In addition, after having the sugar cubes, her family drank a lot of sugar water in revenge, and now they no longer have the initial desire for sugar. Therefore, the amount of sugar cubes in the house can be said to have only increased and not decreased. The Xu family is now a big sugar consumer. When visiting relatives, they will also wrap some sugar cubes in oil paper to give to others. However, due to the strict control of sugar in this era, Xu Congyi has told them to keep a low profile. If they get to the ears of the government, they will definitely be punished. Therefore, they only said that they bought crude sugar and never told others that it was made at home.

After breakfast, Old Man Xu and Hunter Xu pushed the cart to the simple cellar to pull red beets. Hunter Xu went down to throw the red beets out of the cellar, and Old Man Xu was responsible for picking them up in the cart. The father and son worked well together. Xu Congyi told his father not to take out all the red beets, because there were too many. Just take a small half. If you want to finish all the red beets in the cellar at once, it will be very difficult.

Another reason for choosing today is that the brothers Xu Congwen and Xu Congan are resting at home, so they will definitely work together. Hunter Xu throws out the beets, and Old Man Xu loads them onto a cart. The two brothers are responsible for pushing them home one by one and piling them up by the well. After all the red beets needed are returned, Old Man Xu and the two brothers are responsible for cleaning them together. If there are any bad spots, they will be pre-processed with a machete. Hunter Xu, his mother, and Li Dahua are responsible for peeling the washed red beets, and Xu Congyi takes over and cuts the red beets into slices and hangs them on a bamboo dustpan. The whole family works together on the assembly line.

By the time everything was done, the hands of the whole family had turned red, even the three people in charge of washing were not spared, because when washing the red beets, they also needed to check whether there were any rotten parts on the outside. If there were, they had to trim them with a machete, so their hands were also stained with red, but not as much as the hands of those in charge of the other processes.

Several people washed their hands at the well many times but failed to wash off the color on their hands. Although not as red as before, it was still very conspicuous, especially Xu Congyi, because her skin was very white. Seeing the color on her palms, Xu Congyi clenched her fist to hide it. The main reason was that the use of rubber gloves in this era was too out of place, and she had to think of a way to make a tool that could isolate the red pigment. The chopping board and the bamboo dustpan that Grandpa and Dad had specially made were inevitably stained with red. From now on, these would be the special tools for making red beet powder.

Xu Congyi stretched his waist and legs in the yard, looking at the red beet slices drying in the yard. The rest was left to the sun and air. It has been sunny recently, the sun is good, and the air is drier. It shouldn't take long for them to be dried.

On the third day, Xu Congyi woke up early in the morning. She was still sleepy, but she was already thinking about the red beets in the yard. She hurriedly got up from the bed, put on her coat, and walked to the yard. Xu Congyi stood in the yard, her eyes focused on the pile of red beets. She gently squatted down and carefully held a piece of red beet in her hand. She felt that it was much lighter than before. With a light squeeze, the red beet was like a crisp biscuit, and it was easily broken into crumbs. She was happy. This was the effect she wanted. The red beets were dried just right.

Xu Congyi nodded with satisfaction, stood up, and prepared to wash up first. She walked into the house, fetched some clean water, and simply washed her face and hands. At this time, Hunter Xu had already gotten up and was busy in the front yard. Seeing his precious daughter come in, he smiled and asked, "Yiyi, how are the red beets drying?"

Xu Congyi smiled and replied, "Dad, it's already been dried. It's just right."

Hearing this, Hunter Xu nodded and turned to the backyard. He knew what to do next, so he began to clean the millstone to prepare for the next step.

After Xu Congyi finished washing up, she went to the yard. She picked up the dried red beets and spread them evenly into the stone mill. Then, she pushed the stone mill hard, and as the stone mill turned, the dried red beets were gradually ground into powder. Xu Congyi carefully divided the ground red beet powder into porcelain jars, and then put them aside to weigh them. She weighed each porcelain jar one by one, and after subtracting the weight of the porcelain jars, she calculated the total weight of the red beet powder. After some calculations, she found that the beetroot powder made from a large pile of red beets weighed about 20 kilograms.

The beetroot powder was very successful, and Xu Congyi couldn't wait to try making some pastries. He didn't have any ingredients at home, so he planned to wait for Tang Xiaowu to come over to get some popcorn and then go to Tang's Pastry Shop with him. The success rate would be higher if he used Tang's ingredients and tools, and there were professional pastry chefs there, so they would definitely make better-looking pastries.

After eating a few mouthfuls of rice, Xu Congyi went to make popcorn. He got up late today and spent time grinding beets. If he didn't make the popcorn quickly, it would not have enough time to cool down.

Not long after all the popcorn was packed into boxes, the familiar sound of horses driving was heard outside the courtyard gate. Xu Congyi hurried out to greet them. Just as he stretched out his hand to say hello to Tang Xiaowu, he saw Tang Xiaowu throwing away the reins in his hand and running over with a nervous look on his face. Before Xu Congyi could say anything, Tang Xiaowu spoke anxiously.

"Miss Xu, how did your hand get hurt? Did you get scalded by boiling water? It looks serious. I'll go find a doctor for you right away!"

Xu Congyi looked at his palm. Although the color was much lighter, it did look like it was burned from a distance.

"Oh no, I made some color powder that can be used in cakes a few days ago, and it got on my hands and I didn't wash it off. I was just about to tell you if Mr. Tang was in the store. I want to go to Tang's with you and make some cakes with the color powder I made."

"Here he is!"

It turned out that his hand was not injured. Tang Xiaowu was relieved and very happy. Every time Miss Xu went to Tang Ji, delicious food was developed. When he left, the young master was still worrying about what new dim sum to introduce for the Chinese New Year this year. He thought that with Miss Xu around, she would definitely be able to come up with something.