Chapter 77: Chapter 77 Going into the Mountains to Hunt_1
Chapter 77: Chapter 77 Going into the Mountains to Hunt_1
Lin Yue suddenly thought of Zhao Erhu going into the mountains to hunt and whether she should prepare some dry food for him to eat on the road. Zhao Erhu had said that once he enters the mountains, it would take two or three days. He couldn’t just carelessly eat whatever and make do.
In the past, when Zhao Erhu went hunting, he would do just that, making a few dry and hard pancakes for himself. When he got hungry, he would gnaw on a couple of bites. Lin Yue couldn’t stand to see him like this anymore, even though she didn’t know what kind of food Zhao Erhu prepared when he went hunting in the past. But knowing that when he went to the city, in order to save money, he would either go hungry or buy the cheapest steamed bun to fill his stomach, she could imagine how little he regarded himself. And yet, he always left the best for her. Thinking about this, Lin Yue felt both heartache and moved. This man!
Zhao Erhu was leaving tomorrow, and now it was already three or four in the afternoon. Lin Yue was somewhat annoyed that Zhao Erhu hadn’t told her earlier, but fortunately there was still time to prepare. She quickly asked Zhao Erhu to fetch some beans from the storage room. After some thought, she also took some corn, which she normally wouldn’t use because it was reserved for seeds. Now that she was making food for Zhao Erhu, she didn’t care about that. After all, corn was widely grown and the seeds weren’t expensive. When the time came, she would just buy more seeds.
Zhao Erhu thought Lin Yue had come up with some new delicacy she wanted to make, and obediently followed his little wife’s orders. He first fetched what Lin Yue wanted, then carried the corn to the village chief’s house to grind it into flour. When the corn flour was ready, Lin Yue brought over the beans she had fried and made fragrant, asking Zhao Erhu to grind them as well.
Originally, Lin Yue had taken the beans with the intention of grinding them into soymilk to make bean cakes. However, grinding soymilk required soaking the beans first, and time was tight. So, Lin Yue decided to just fry the beans until they were fragrant and cooked before grinding them into powder. Later, she would add some sugar and have Zhao Erhu heat it up in a bamboo tube over the fire. Drinking it warm and sweet would be comforting. Actually, Lin Yue had never made this before, it was something she came up with on the fly. When she got home, she would try drinking it herself to see if it was good enough for Zhao Erhu to take with him.
As for the corn flour, Lin Yue mixed it with white flour to make corn buns. Then, she took the remaining half slab of streaky pork that Zhao Erhu had bought when he went to the city to consult Doctor Zheng the day before and chopped it all up. She made it into pork filling with seasonings and wrapped a dozen plump white buns.
After finishing these, Lin Yue considered that Zhao Erhu had a big appetite and worried that he might not have enough to eat, to suffer from cold and hunger in the mountains. After wandering around the house for a while, she found a few eggs. She boiled the eggs first, then used a small iron pot to put old tea leaves, cinnamon, star anise, fennel, and salt in it along with water, then added the boiled eggs with cracked shells and let them simmer on a small stove Zhao Erhu had built out of bricks, designed for Lin Yue to cook soups and medicines. Now it was also put to good use for her.
On the evening before going to sleep, Lin Yue packed all the food she prepared for Zhao Erhu in a bundle, checked it over once, and then went to bed with peace of mind.
The next day, Zhao Erhu got up at dawn as usual, cooked porridge and ate a bowl for himself, leaving the rest warm in the pot. Originally, considering that Lin Yue had made a lot of food yesterday, he didn’t make the dry and hard pancakes this time, planning to take a few corn buns with him on the road. But after searching for a long time, he couldn’t find where Lin Yue had put the things. It was still early, and Zhao Erhu didn’t want to wake Lin Yue up. He thought that it didn’t really matter if he didn’t take any with him, he could always catch some game and roast it to eat. He shouldered the hunting gear he had prepared and was ready to leave the house.