Chapter 1685 - 1086: Heroine of the Republic 60 (4000+)_3

Chapter 1685: Chapter 1086: Heroine of the Republic 60 (4000+)_3

Although still short of one thousand yuan to reach ten thousand, she’s not worried at all, because aside from planning to sell more eggs, she doesn’t intend to release any other goods for the time being.

The lard at home has already run out; this year she’s rendered beef tallow, chicken fat, duck fat, and goose fat. The quantity isn’t large, but it’s enough to last until spring.

Since energy needs to be supplemented with these animal fats in the winter, she opted to give up using vegetable oil, using animal fats for cooking meals for the children instead.

When there’s no meat to eat, she uses animal fat with dried vegetables to stew, sauerkraut stew, cabbage spinach stew; even if it just touches a bit of fat, the flavor is much better than dry fried dishes.

The Northeast primarily focuses on stews during winter because if stir-fried dishes are brought to the table, they could get cold by the time the next dish is ready; therefore, common cooking methods are stew-based. Besides these dried and pickled vegetables prepared for the New Year at home, she also soaked tofu skin, black fungus, kelp, and daylily as precious supplements. The starch content of the space’s tubers is extremely high, making them perfect for making glass noodles.

It’s impossible to go without glass noodles and cabbage in Northeastern winter dishes, and many kinds of pasta appear, such as steamed or boiled dumplings, buns, and steamed buns.

Over the years living in the Northeast, she’s already gotten used to the lifestyle here, although occasionally she makes snacks from other regions to broaden the children’s horizons while also giving some lessons from ’A Bite of China’ to introduce lifestyles from various places.

This is An Yi’s usual method of education, using practice to explain, allowing them to better appreciate the effort it takes to obtain food.

This year she also raised a batch of bees in the space. The several plots in the space have flowers blooming and withering daily and need bees for pollination and honey collection. After six months, a hundred or so jin of fresh honey have been harvested altogether. This honey is the purest nectar, collected through space pollination, and the taste? Truly, it’s not cloying in the least. Once you taste it, a floral fragrance lingers and reverberates on the palate, impossible to forget.

With honey on hand, she occasionally makes the children milk honey roasted egg cakes.

The oven is constructed outside with mud and tiles, and the final product baked over pure charcoal fire tastes much better than that from an electric oven.

Aside from making egg cakes, it can also bake bread, roast chicken, and roast duck. After experiencing all sorts of delicious foods from top to bottom, the children of the An family can’t bear to eat any outside-prepared food anymore.

Soon, the Spring Festival of 1957 arrived. There were no relatives to visit again this year. While An Yi was not at home, Anna had already taken An Hu, with the New Year’s gifts prepared by her, to the countryside, as well as to visit the school leadership at County First Middle School and First High School. Along with homemade tea, liquor, and pastries from An Yi (space produced), they also brought some dried vegetables, pickled duck eggs, and goose eggs. These are considered the highest standard for gift-giving.

For An Yi, it’s nothing much, but simply hoping that in the future these little sisters and children will have smoother paths. Therefore, An Yi didn’t show up this time to avoid being seen by people from the same family compound.

Anna is already a familiar face. She only sends An Hu to go inside while she waits outside, handling people and exchanges is all done by An Hu himself.

Of course, to avoid creating too much trouble, they always visit in the evening, clearly expressing An Yi’s intentions is enough.

An Yi has already applied to the school not to participate in the school’s housing allocation plan. Her salary gets evaluated annually for gradual promotion, so there’s no need for her to seek underhanded help, and the only place she might need the school leaders is probably in the future prospects for the sisters and Ah Hu.

She herself is already established, but for these few people, they might need recommendation letters, introductions, and such in the future, which the school leaders could very well help with. Laying a foundation early isn’t wrong.

When An Yi returned, it was just after Xiao Nian, so there was no need for her to busy herself with the gift-giving again; she only needed to prepare the New Year goods for their small household. But at this time, the long-unseen Gu Cheng came, bringing festival gifts sent by Qin Zheng.

Upon opening the package, An Yi found ten jin of cotton and thirty feet of cloth tickets inside. She looked at Gu Cheng in surprise: "He’s returned to the army?"

Gu Cheng shook his head: "He’s transferred to Ha City; I don’t know exactly what position he’s in, but he serves in the military. Your cloth tickets should all be military supplies tickets."

An Yi took a careful look, and sure enough, they were. After thanking Gu Cheng, she asked, "Should I offer him a return gift?"

Gu Cheng shook his head: "Yours was sent along with mine, and he only asked me to thank you, nothing else mentioned. I’ll ask in my letter next time, and if he agrees, I’ll give you the address."

After all, considering he’s a soldier, being a bit cautious is appropriate. An Yi didn’t find it improper, she turned back into the house and packed three jin of eggs and five jin of sticky bean buns for Gu Cheng.

"Thank you for making this trip, these are freshly made by us, take them home to eat. Whether it’s you or him, if you need anything, just say the word."