Go back to the past to plant trees

The Zhao brothers returned in the late afternoon, nearing evening.

"How was the harvest? Enough for a meal, right?"

The Zhao brothers, Jinquan and Jinquan, walked into the dugout, emanating a chill from their clothes. Zheng Erqiang, who was busy working, saw them and casually asked a question.

"Not bad," Zhao Jinquan said, shaking his slightly cold feet. "I caught seven or eight, and I estimate they weigh about three or four pounds each. The wild goats are really fat in winter. I also marked six or seven holes, just waiting to catch them after the snow. If it weren't for this, we would have come back long ago."

"Have some hot water to warm your body!" Feng Cheng took the kettle off the stove and poured a bowl of water for each person.

Although it didn't snow, the sub-zero temperatures were still very cold.

Zhao Jinshui picked up the bowl directly and shoved the steaming hot water into his mouth, complaining as he drank:

"I'm freezing! I called them back a long time ago, but they insisted on bringing in more. My snot is practically freezing out."

"You're just too lazy. I told you to dig a hole, but you just pretended to be dead. You dug a couple of times and then said you were too tired. How could you not be cold like that? Serves you right."

After teasing his cousin, Zhao Jinquan said to Zheng Erqiang, "Erqiang, go and deal with the sheep first. I'll stay here for a while and warm up a bit before I go over."

"Row."

Zheng Erqiang put down his work, got up and left the dugout.

Feng Cheng thought for a moment and felt that he should go out and help. He couldn't just sit and wait to be fed. They went out to catch the fish and then had to cook it for him when they came back. It was a bit unreasonable for him to just sit there and do nothing.

"Oh, right, there are a few soybean pulp pancakes in the pot. You can eat them if you're hungry. But they might get cold if they've been sitting out for a while. You can bring them over the stove to heat them up before eating."

As he was leaving, Feng Cheng suddenly remembered something and turned to the two of them to say it.

"Soybean dregs pancakes, I want some," Zhao Jinshui said, immediately standing up when he heard there was food. "Fourth Brother, do you want some?"

"Yes, if I didn't want it, you would have eaten it all."

"Then I'll get it."

Zhao Jinshui was very fast; he darted out of the dugout in no time and got ahead of Feng Cheng. A short while later, he returned carrying a large bowl.

Feng Cheng smiled and walked up to Zheng Erqiang. "How do we do this?"

"Brother Feng, you boil some water. This needs to be scalded with boiling water and its feathers plucked. I'll kill it first."

"Row."

Feng Cheng went inside and started boiling water.

Within minutes, Zhao Jinquan arrived, and Zheng Erqiang was also very fast, killing all the sheep in one go.

When Zhao Jinquan arrived in the kitchen, the two were waiting for the water in the pot to boil.

"The tofu is ready, would you like to take a look?"

When Zheng Erqiang saw Zhao Jinquan come in, he knew that Zhao had been trying to take advantage of him, so he asked him a question.

"where is it?"

"There, over there, it's been sitting there for most of the day, it's gotten cold."

Zhao Jinquan followed Zheng Erqiang's gaze and saw the tofu-pressing mold he had made. He walked over and opened it to take a look.

Zheng Erqiang said from the side, "I feel that it is even better than your uncle's, it is white and tender."

“It does look better than what my uncle makes,” Zhao Jinquan nodded, then asked Feng Cheng, “Brother Feng, shall we have tofu and mutton soup for dinner tonight?”

"Correct."

"This is too lavish! Maybe we should eat the lamb tomorrow. It won't spoil in this weather," Zhao Jinquan suggested.

Feng Cheng said, "It's okay, we've already eaten them. If it's not enough, we can go out and find a few more wild sheep tomorrow. We went through so much trouble to catch them, how can we not eat them?"

In later generations, even a fast food meal would require three meat dishes, and they had to be large pieces of meat, otherwise people would think the fast food was not good enough. But in this era, it was already good to have meat in a meal, let alone tofu, which could only be eaten during the New Year.

People in this era are used to keeping things and storing them away, rather than using or consuming them immediately.

Feng Cheng's habit, however, is that things are meant to be used, not collected. If he runs out of things, he buys new ones. If he doesn't have money, he finds a way to make it.

Although he felt that the dinner was a bit extravagant, Zhao Jinquan was still very happy to be able to eat such a good meal.

After the water boiled, Zhao Jinquan and Zheng Erqiang began plucking the wool from the sheep. Some of the wool that couldn't be plucked clean would be burned off later.

After plucking the wool and gutting them, the eight sheep were ready in no time.

A huge basin full of these things. Feng Cheng looked at them, and to be honest, he was quite looking forward to it. He'd eaten field mice, mountain mice, and bamboo rats before, but never these ground squirrels. In his previous life, his family would catch field mice every year during the rice harvest; they cost seventy or eighty yuan per pound, and Feng Cheng couldn't afford to buy them even if he wanted to.

He remembered that when he was a child, he often heard others say that the children in the village would go up the mountain to set cages to catch mountain rats. They could catch five or six rats in one night, and a pound of live rats could be sold for five or six yuan. At that time, Feng Cheng didn't have much pocket money and regretted that he had moved to the city, otherwise he could have gone with them to set cages to catch mountain rats.

If this thing were in the future, it would probably be quite valuable. I just don't know if it would be protected in the future.

Feng Cheng didn't know how to make this, so he sat by the stove and watched Zhao Jinquan and Zheng Erqiang work on it.

It was almost time for dinner, so after finishing up, I decided to cook dinner.

"The sheep are quite fatty and have a lot of oil, so you can add some potatoes to stew together. As for tofu, you can stew it with cabbage!"

Zhao Jinquan looked at the two ingredients and gave his opinion.

"Okay, do it your way."

Feng Cheng didn't know how to cook ground sheep, but he knew several ways to cook tofu. However, he could make that later. There were still several pounds of soybeans in the camp, which could be used to cook tofu several times later. He could try other ways to cook it next time. For the first time, he would cook it according to the local method, which would also allow him to test the texture of the tofu.

Besides the mutton and tofu, Zhao Jinquan also took out some dried vegetables, which he planned to stir-fry together later.

In the days when seasonings were scarce, cooking was not very particular. People would just stir-fry something or make a stew. Stews were especially delicious when there was meat in them, because the other side dishes would also become very tasty after absorbing the broth and oil from the meat. Therefore, stews were often considered famous dishes.

It took almost an hour to prepare dinner, mainly because there was only one stove and one pot, and cooking and stir-frying were done here at the same time, so it took longer.

However, Feng Cheng hadn't seen this scene of several people sitting around the stove waiting for dinner in a long time. In his previous life, he only had it a few times during the Spring Festival when he was a child. After growing up, he would play on his phone and wait for his family to bring the dishes to the table. He would have to be called several times before he would eat. Even if he did eat, he wouldn't eat much. He would only eat a little of the sumptuous dishes on the table, which was a complete waste of his family's hard work.

Thinking of this, Feng Cheng felt a little disappointed. If he had another chance, he would definitely save his stomach and eat all the dishes his parents had cooked.