The whole family travels through time and space, and the three of them struggle together

After lunch, Zhou Dajiang was still thinking about going back to the village to find a house, so he planned to leave early.

After the car overturned, Chen's father was worried about their children walking alone, so he asked his son Chen Zhiyuan to go to the car dealership to find an ox cart and take them home.

So, the family of three took a bullock cart, pulling half of the cart with things, and returned home in the afternoon.

Chen Zhiyuan and the driver helped move the things into the house and left. After Zhou Dajiang saw people off, he asked his brother Zhou Dahai to take him to the village to look at houses.

There are actually two empty houses in the village. One is at the west end of the village, near the foot of the mountain. The elderly couple who owned the house went to another place with their son. The house was prone to collapse if it was left empty for a long time, so they asked someone to help rent it out.

The other empty house was the former ancestral hall in the village. In order to gain a good reputation, the Zhang family, the head of the village, took the initiative to build a new ancestral hall for the village, and this old hall became vacant.

Zhou Dajiang took a fancy to the empty house at the west end of the village. It had three main rooms, two side rooms, and a woodshed, which was enough to accommodate three people. There was also a vegetable garden behind the house. It was also close to the slope at the foot of Zhoujia Mountain, making it convenient for him to go up the mountain in the future.

The house was looked after by the family of Tian Youbao next door, and it was Tian Youbao who also paid for the rent. The two of them went to the head of the village to sign a deed, with a lease term of one year and a rent of one tael and two cents of silver.

Coincidentally, the homestead approval document that Village Chief Zhang brought back was located next to the vegetable garden.

It was a large open space connected to the foot of the mountain, enough for two families to build more than a dozen tiled houses.

It was Qiao’s mother who opened the door for Qiao, and Qiao finally got home.

Zhou Dajiang felt lucky, and Zhou Dahai was happy for his brother as the house issue was resolved so smoothly.

On the other side, Zhou Sisi went to look for Zhou Gong as soon as she got home. There was no way, the little guy was so tired today that she felt like her feet were not her own.

After the child fell asleep, Chen Xiuying sorted out the things she had brought back. She told her mother-in-law that she was going to make some new food and asked her to help taste it in the evening, then she got busy.

She first made cold noodles. There are many ways to make cold noodles in modern times, but the one my family likes best is the one made with the noodle-washing method.

She first weighed two pounds of flour, added a little salt and alkali to the flour, added water and kneaded it into a smooth dough. After kneading, she let it rest for about ten minutes and then started washing the dough.

Pour clean water into the basin and knead the dough continuously with your hands until the gluten is washed out and the water becomes clear and then stop washing.

Gather the washed gluten together and add a little old dough to ferment. Pour away the clean water from the washing water and let the remaining dough settle. This will take about two hours.

Chen Xiuying was worried that the noodle soup would go bad in the hot weather, so she put the basin of water in a bamboo basket, tied a rope to the handle of the basket, and lowered it into the well to dry.

Then she started to make sea jelly.

This is relatively simple. Take two pounds of seaweed, wash it with cold water and pour it into the pot, then add water to the pot in a ratio of one to ten, add some rice vinegar to the water to remove the fishy smell, and then you can light the fire and cook it.

After boiling, use a colander to filter out the residue. Place the soup bowl in a basket and hang it in the well to cool.

The main ingredients are ready.

Next, she began to prepare the seasoning. Whether it was sea jelly or cold noodles, seasoning was crucial.

The cooking water, garlic water and chili oil all need to be prepared in advance.

She first boiled the sauce, which is a versatile sauce for mixing cold noodles and jelly.

She first made a simple gauze bag, filled it with the prepared spices such as fennel, star anise, cinnamon, peppercorns, bay leaves, etc., added a small amount of water to the pot, and after the water boiled, threw the bag into the pot and spun it around before taking it out. If the ingredients soak for too long, the water will easily become too strong.

Then pour a little aged vinegar, salt, sugar and soy sauce into the cooking water, and mix everything together to make the cooking water.

In modern times, Chen Xiuying also likes to add some chicken essence to the water for flavoring. This was not possible in ancient times, and it was already good enough to be able to roughly restore 80% of the taste.

After the water is boiled, fry the chili oil.

She was going to fry the secret chili oil from Shaanxi. This chili oil was not only rich in flavor but also not very spicy. It was suitable for people of all ages and all three members of her family liked it.

The only drawback of this chili oil is that it requires a lot of spices, which have to be ground into powder.

There happened to be a small stone mill at home. With the help of her mother-in-law, Chen Xiuying ground all the thirteen spices she had prepared, including angelica dahurica, bay leaves, etc.

The dried chilies also needed to be ground. Chili oil contains two types of chilies: coarse flakes and finely ground. By the time everything was ground, it took half an hour.

Zhang and Li, who had gone to the mountains to pick mushrooms and cut grass for pigs, also came back with their children.

In order not to delay everyone from using the pot, Chen Xiuying quickly fried the chili oil.

The overbearing aroma of chili oil attracted adults and children in the family to gather at the kitchen door. They all wanted to know what delicious food was going to be cooked, it smelled so good!

When Chen Xiuying saw everyone gathered at the door, she knew it was all because of the chili oil.

There is no way. The characteristic of this secret chili oil is its rich aroma. Moreover, in order to increase the aroma, Chen Xiuying also added a lot of white sesame seeds into it. You can imagine how fragrant it is.

Since she had to deal with the trouble she had caused herself, Chen Xiuying said straightforwardly, "Why don't you all just stop cooking tonight? I'm making a new dish. When it's ready, everyone can help me taste it and see if it's worth selling."

When the children heard there was something delicious to eat, they ran around the yard, shouting happily, "We have something delicious tonight!"

Zhou Dajiang and his brother also came back at this time. Zhou Dajiang said with a smile: "Judging from the smell, I think our food will be a big seller."

Zhang and Li felt embarrassed to just wait for food, so they went into the kitchen to help.

Chen Xiuying asked Li to help steam the gluten, and then asked her sister-in-law to help make garlic water. This is not difficult. After peeling the garlic, chop it into small pieces, add a little oil, pour in cold boiled water, and stir until it turns milky white.

She poured herself out, intending to find a small plate to steam the liangpi. In modern times, she'd used a pizza pan. While ironware existed in this era, it was mostly used for knives and farm tools, leaving ceramic as the primary material for kitchen basins and plates. She found a plate that barely held up, but after looking at it over and over again, she still wasn't satisfied. She needed to make a steaming pan.

Thinking of this, she called Zhou Dajiang, who was enjoying the cool air in the yard, and asked him to go back and ask his third brother to make an iron steaming tray for her.

When it comes to processing, Zhou Dajiang is more familiar with it than anyone else. As soon as Chen Xiuying mentioned the word "steaming plate", he understood it immediately.

At the same time, he also thought of the grater for scraping sea jelly. His brain was so distracted that he had an idea. His eyes lit up and he hugged his wife tightly and said, "Wife, you really reminded me that we can also make some small kitchen tools, such as graters, peelers, hand-crank meat grinders, etc. If we can make all of these, we can make more money than food."

Chen Xiuying blushed and pushed him away, "Go and do your work, don't delay me from cooking." After saying that, she turned around and went back to the kitchen.

Zhou Dajiang had a good idea in his mind. He was very excited and went back to the room to wake up Zhou Sisi who was sleeping.

Although he had a good idea, he was not good at drawing and needed his daughter's help.

So, Zhou Sisi, with a head full of alopecia, listened to her father describe what he needed.

Then she understood. Aren’t these just kitchen tools? She had seen them all before, and they weren’t difficult to draw.

The iron steaming pan is the round pan that my mother used to bake pizza.

There are two types of graters, one is a small grater used for scraping sea jelly, and the other is a grater used for grating, the scientific name of which is a grater.

The hand-cranked meat grinder is easier to explain. It is just the motor on the household electric meat grinder turned into a hand-cranked handle.

After Zhou Sisi figured it out, he went to the kitchen and asked Chen Xiuying for a small, blackened wooden stick. He then asked Zhou Dajiang to sharpen it into the thickness of a pencil. In ancient times, there were no pencils, so this charcoal stick was the only substitute.

Then, she found some papers on which Zhou Dajiang had written articles before, lay over the table, and drew the outlines of the iron steaming tray, grater, peeler, and hand-crank blender that Zhou Dajiang wanted on the back of the paper.

She didn't dare use good paper, for fear that her grandmother would see it and scold her for being a spendthrift.

A good drawing not only includes the outline, but also requires marking out every component and all its dimensions. Under her father's guidance, Zhou Sisi began drawing the component drawings. She was responsible for drawing the graphics, while Zhou Dajiang completed the dimensioning.

The drawings for the iron steaming plate, grater, and paring knife were relatively simple and finished in no time. The hand-cranked meat grinder was more complex, requiring several parts: a crank handle at the top, a perforated lid in the middle, and a rotating blade at the bottom. The meat grinder's barrel also needed to be drawn. To facilitate connections, the connecting parts had to be drawn as gears. This resulted in a large and complex design, making it impossible to complete in a short time. Zhou Dajiang asked her to take her time, deciding to build the first few simple ones first to test the waters before moving on to the more complex ones.

His idea was simple: except for the necessary blade, all other parts were replaced with wood, so that only a small amount of iron could be used to make it.

While the father and son finished drawing, Chen Xiuying had also steamed and mixed the cold noodles. The sea jelly needed to cool down overnight, so everyone was eating cold noodles tonight. Chen Xiuying was worried that there wouldn't be enough, so she mixed all the steamed cold noodles, added shredded cucumber and coriander, and put in the steamed gluten, and poured the sauce, garlic water and chili oil on it. The fresh and refreshing cold noodles were ready.

Since children cannot eat spicy food, Chen Xiuying prepared a small bowl of non-spicy cold noodles for them.

But Zhou Sisi loves spicy food and insisted on eating the same kind of cold noodles as the adults.

The Zhou family, young and old, men and women, each holding a large bowl, saw Mother Zhou shouting, "Let's eat!" The courtyard was filled with the sound of slurping. No one spoke, because who would speak at this time? It would waste time. Seeing that the large bowl of cold noodles was almost gone, they had to get down to business first. No, the most important thing was to eat the cold noodles first.

Zhou Dahe came back at this time, and as soon as he entered the yard, he shouted, "What smells so good? Hurry up and give me a bowl too."

He arrived at the right time and grabbed the last bowl of cold noodles. If he had been a minute later, the cold noodles would probably have been in someone else's bowl.