Chapter 531 The Hamster's Hoarding Nature

Tang Cuihong had money and grain, but she would buy some every month to show off to outsiders.

Besides, it's only natural that Niu Feng's salary and food allowance need to be spent.

Not only grains, but also meat, eggs, oil and other things that we occasionally need to buy for our household.

She has plenty of fish and shrimp in her room, and she often fries fish. The fried fish is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, like eating a steamed bun, and it has few bones.

She prefers fish and shrimp to pork, which is high in fat.

It's a rare occasion for the two sisters to have a drink, so they definitely need to treat themselves to something nice.

"Shall we roast a chicken today?"

The small bar has a whole chicken, cleaned thoroughly, marinated inside and out with a sauce, stuffed with onions, peppers, and various seasonings, and then the opening is sewn up.

"Oh, you have lotus leaves too? I have not only lotus leaves, but also lotus flowers. I picked a lot of them when I passed by and they looked beautiful."

When Tang Cuihong saw Xiao Jiu take out the lotus leaves, her eyes lit up, and she thought of the ones she had picked before.

"Me too. I stopped to pick some lotus leaves when I passed by the pond. Now they'll come in handy. Let's make lotus leaf chicken."

After that, I went out and found some soil from the hillside. After sifting it, I added water and mixed it into mud to coat the whole chicken.

They dug a pit in the yard, covered it with a small stove, and started cooking. They made winter melon and pork rib soup underneath and cooked rice on top. Burnt ash would fall into the pit from under the stove.

The two stoves in the house, which were used for heating the kang (a heated brick bed), were also kept busy. Since she was cooking more, it was considered as storing up food for her sister.

There was a chicken under each stove. Cuihong looked at her suspiciously: "Will these cook?"

"It's okay, just flip it once a meal, and it should be ready to eat tonight."

We can add charcoal ash when we're warming ourselves by the fire in the afternoon, and it will cook through when we simmer it."

Inside the house, a large pot is filled with steamed seafood, which is the sisters' favorite way of cooking.

When eating seafood, enjoy it plain, with some dipping sauce; the taste will still be outstanding.

In another pot, deep-fry pork belly, pork tenderloin, eggplant fritters, lotus root slices, and fried dough sticks; blanched and cut pork belly into large slices; meat and vegetable fritters; and fried fish and shrimp balls.

It's not easy to open a fryer, so my fourth sister just happened to have kneaded the dough and fried some staple food to use as a side dish.

"Only when the oil is heated does the atmosphere of the New Year begin. These days, no one has it easy, but some military wives come over to deliver the New Year's goods they made."

I can't go back with the child, could you please take some fried fish pieces to that person for me later?

With a little wine, you have a reason to ask, otherwise, people might just ask, "Did you buy fish before the New Year?" It's hard to explain!

"Sister Xing, don't worry, I'll make sure everything is arranged perfectly for you in a bit. Just focus on taking care of Dun Dun."

And so, Xiao Jiu stayed at Cui Hong's place for two days, with the fire in the house never going out all day long.

Not only did I make roast chicken for my sister, but I also braised a lot of duck parts, chicken parts, pork offal, and beef chunks.

"Keep it while it's hot, and you can take it out and eat it with a staple food for a meal. Don't throw away the soup either, you can use it to cook noodles."

Cuihong was deeply moved. "We're both new mothers, but my older sister isn't as lucky as me, is she?"

"My older sister doesn't have our magic touch. I'm willing but unable to do anything. It was too hot when I got home, so I couldn't save anything at all."

Besides, my eldest brother-in-law comes home every day, unlike my fourth brother-in-law, who is only home a few days a year!

"Hey? Fourth Sister, aren't you considering going home? It would be much better to bring the child home than to raise him alone, wouldn't it?"

At least when they come home from work or school, they'll have someone to talk to.

Unexpectedly, Cuihong refused without even thinking.

"It's okay, I'm doing fine here. I've stocked up on a lot of vegetables in the last two years."

Except for the three months before and after giving birth, I took my child out to dig for wild vegetables and pick mushrooms all over the mountains.

I've accumulated so many wild vegetables, wild mushrooms, firewood, and wild fruits in my online storage, but where would we find the resources for that at home?

Also, your brother-in-law may not stay here forever; he might be transferred to another place in the future.

"The more I stock up, the more I can send home; these kinds of things won't attract attention when sent home."

She realized that her fourth sister had the kind of hard-working nature that led her to travel around mountains and seas!

"If you have the chance, you should go to Northeast China. There are many forests and mountains there, and you can find so many wild animals, medicinal herbs, and mountain products that you can't possibly pick them all up."

The Southwest is also a good choice. It's by the sea and produces a lot of tropical fruits, satisfying your fruit needs all year round. It also provides a source for the seafood in your space.

Actually, the resources in the south are much richer than here, with several harvests a year. Didn't Fifth Sister go south?

Xiao Jiu never imagined that her unintentional remark would become a crucial factor influencing Niu Feng's future choices.

Hardworking people are generally lucky. With their hamster-like nature, they won't go hungry even without space.

For example, the Cuihua sisters and their friends went there to plant radishes and cabbages after the courtyard in Taoyuan Village was taken back.

This winter, the vegetables from the three courtyards of the Tao, Zhou, and Tang families had a bumper harvest.

After deducting the one-third that was given to the Tao family, one-third of the remaining vegetables were pickled, and the remaining one-third were kept fresh.

Compared to other families who had too many mouths to feed, these families had a bumper harvest.

The freshly harvested winter melons and pumpkins, due to their high yield, climbed all over the walls and yards, and were brought home before the first frost.

Pumpkin can replace staple food; enjoy it every day in various ways, such as pumpkin porridge, pumpkin pancakes, and steamed pumpkin.

Compared to sweet potatoes, which cause stomach acid buildup, pumpkin makes me feel much better after eating it.

The houses in Taoyuan Village were half-built before the Lunar New Year and should be completed before the spring planting season.

After the sisters visited Taoyuan Village more often, Li Qingqing and her daughter couldn't resist causing trouble again.

She even brought in the brothers' children to morally blackmail them, but unexpectedly, it was Cao Amei who jumped out to curse them at this time.

Whether it was out of a desire to curry favor or not, Cao Amei would go to her sister-in-law's door every day to hurl insults.

Cao Amei did the same thing to Tang Cuihua, even saying that the mother and daughter were cursed to bring misfortune to their husbands/fathers, sons/brothers, and so on. The mother and daughter wanted to talk back, but they couldn't because it was a fact that their family was torn apart.

Now the two of them have to raise four children and work every day to earn work points. If they dare not work for even one day, they may not have enough food to eat at the end of the year.

After being scolded by Cao Amei so often, he began to doubt his life and even took his anger out on the children.

The whole house was constantly shrouded in insults, and this created childhood trauma for several children...

Having learned her lesson, Li Qingqing realized that she couldn't afford to provoke Cuihua and her group.

If you ignore them, you'll be fine; but if you go looking for trouble, you'll suffer a terrible fate.

Sometimes she even wondered if their family's current predicament was already destined from the very beginning, when they ordered Tang Youtian to do chores for the family and indulged him in his neglect of his own family.