Chapter 69: A female mate chooses to farm (18)

The acres of land next to the mulberry field are planted with fruits and vegetables, of various types and colors.

 There are some that Uncle Wang knows, and some that he has never seen. Squeezed and squeezed together, they are growing very well. Some were not even planted during this season.

Uncle Wang has been farming for decades, and this is the first time he has seen such a scene, and he was deeply shocked.

He couldn't help but doubt that he had been a white man for the past few decades, and he couldn't do it as well as a noble girl who couldn't lift it with her hands or carry it on her shoulders.

Xu Yin would probably burst into laughter if she heard Uncle Wang's thoughts.

This is the charm of scientific farming!

"Uncle Wang, many of these vegetables are ripe. I'll have people tie some with red cotton strings to save the seeds, and find someone to pick the rest in the near future. Send some to the palace every day, and you can share the rest. The melons still have to wait. After a period of time, when they are ripe, pick some and save the seeds, and use the rest as vegetables. Send the first batch of melons to the palace, and you can share the rest to eat."

 Uncle Wang expressed his gratitude to the tenant farmers in Zhuangzi.

After Xu Yin visited the vegetable field, she went next door to look at the rice field.

It will take another month for the rice to mature, so it’s time to harvest it before going on a trip. When the time comes, you can go out and play with the joy of the harvest and be in a good mood to fly.

“Princess, there are still three-thirds of the beans, what do you plan to do with them?”

 Uncle Wang saw that in the fruit and vegetable field, there were a few ridges of beans, which were still green at the moment.

This bean is generally used to feed livestock. It's not that people can't eat it, but eating too much will bloat the stomach. They only fry some during the New Year and festivals and give it to the children as snacks. Therefore, they don't grow much. Who is willing to use good land to grow livestock feed? .

 But the princess had just asked him to send some of each vegetable to the palace, so she was not sure whether the package included the beans.

Xu Yin thought of this and patted her forehead: "I almost forgot! Don't pick too many green bean pods, give them away once or twice for a taste, and harvest the rest when they are ripe and golden. Come back." I’m of great use.”

Soybeans are almost mature, so you can consider tofu and soy sauce.

 She took the time to glance at her energy point balance. Fortunately! During this period, apart from spending some money on solar panels, I saved the rest. It’s not a fool’s errand. The 3,000 energy points exchanged for the soy sauce recipe can be arranged.

 After making arrangements for the farming work in the experimental field, Xu Yin returned to the palace with a cart of vegetables grown by herself and several relatively ripe watermelons and melons.

Yan Kejin hasn’t come back from the mine yet.

Xu Yin took a bath, changed into a light gauze skirt, and let Qiu Shuang open a watermelon.

　　One or two parts are raw, but you can eat it. I cut a bowl of melon flesh and ate it with a fork.

 There is a lot of water and the sweetness is slightly lacking, but Xu Yin is very satisfied. After all, it is not fully mature yet. If it is raised for another ten days and a half, the taste will improve.

However, no matter how delicious it was, one person couldn't eat the whole melon. Most of it was given to the nanny to share with the maids.

“Don’t leave the melon cut for a long time, otherwise bacteria will easily breed.”

Grandma didn’t know what bacteria were, but she knew that it was easy to get sick if you ate fruits that had been stored for a long time, so she took them and shared them as she was told.

 When Yan Kejin came back, it was already evening.

The watermelon was too big to be eaten after it was opened, so Xu Yin asked someone to cut a melon.

 “Can you eat it?”

Yan Kejin knew that she had planted a lot of fruits and vegetables on the village as soon as she arrived, but she didn't expect that it was already the harvest season.

“The melons are not yet cooked, so pick a few and try them first.”

Melons were first brought to the Central Plains by Hu merchants. The nobles in Beijing would grow some in hot spring villages. Whether they are eaten at home or given to others, they are excellent seasonal fruits. It is rare here in Nanman.

 I think it is still a problem of inconvenient transportation. Of course, the main reason is that even eating a full meal with an open stomach is still a luxury. The fields are limited, who would think of growing melons? Every time you plant a melon, you lose a share of grain, which makes me feel sad just thinking about it.

Xu Yin planted some fruits for a change because she had high-yielding rice seeds in her hands. What's more, vitamins are also necessary for the human body.

“I’ve read a travelogue, saying that the small island country in the Southeast Asia is rich in tropical fruits. If you have the chance to go there, you must bring some back. The climate here is actually quite suitable for growing fruits.”

 “Did you read it in miscellaneous books again?” Yan Kejin looked at her with a half-smile.

Xu Yin smiled and said nothing. Anyway, just leave everything to "the book says"!

 …

The next day, she personally cooked a table of home-cooked dishes using the fresh vegetables delivered by Zhuangzi.

 Since I came here, this is the first time I have touched pots and pans, and I feel a little raw.

It can be seen that it is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it will be uncomfortable to go from luxury to frugality.

Next time she would dress like a peasant girl fleeing the countryside and have to rely on herself for everything, so Xu Yin decided to cook more in the future.

 “Try it, I made it!”

She raised her chin at Yan Kejin who walked in the door.

 King Jinnan, who heard that the princess was busy in the kitchen early in the morning, deliberately did not leave the house today and came to the main courtyard on time for dinner. He looked at her with a smile and sat down.

“I must taste the dishes that the princess personally grows, harvests, and cooks.”

 On the table, he had only eaten fish in sour soup and eight-treasure duck.

Other dishes such as cucumber with garlic, winter melon with shrimp skin, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, stir-fried cabbage, spinach with pine nuts, and pumpkin cake with minced carrots and shredded meat are all made from ingredients I have never seen before.

“These were all cultivated from the seeds you bought from Shang Hu?”

 Xu Yin knew he would ask this.

 In fact, among the seeds she bought from Hu Shang, the only ones that have not yet been planted in Yanhua are pumpkins and carrots. The rest were transferred from the system warehouse by her using the name "Hu Shang".

 Some of them should have been introduced into the country around the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but they are all imported. Wouldn't it be better to use them in advance to enrich the people's dining tables?

Therefore, Xu Yin nodded without any guilt:

"Well, I was worried that the seeds from the north would not be planted here. I didn't expect them to grow very well. It seems that the water and soil in the south are very suitable for planting. I asked Uncle Wang to save the seeds. When the yield increases in the future, they can be supplied to the palace. Restaurants can also open a shop specifically to sell the seeds of these vegetables at a lower price. People can buy them and plant them in front of and behind their houses to add a few dishes to the table. If there are more, they can sell them on the street to supplement their family income. .”

Yan Kejin took a deep look at her, and then smiled: "The princess is so broad-minded, it's a pity that she's not a man."

 Xu Yin: “…”

If I were a man, would we still be destined for each other?

 …

 It’s the Dragon Boat Festival in just two days.

 Xu Yin asked the kitchen to make a lot of rice dumplings in advance. The flavors are very rich, including eight-treasure rice dumplings, osmanthus honey bean paste and red date rice dumplings, salted egg yolk fresh meat rice dumplings, chestnut meat rice dumplings... There are several kinds of salty and sweet ones.

 One of the Dragon Boat Festival benefits for servants in the house is a bunch of assorted rice dumplings.

The chef was dumbfounded when he first heard Xu Yin say that he wanted to make a batch of salted egg yolk meat dumplings and chestnut meat rice dumplings.

He has worked as a royal cook in the palace for so many years and has made thousands or not tens of thousands of rice dumplings with fillings by himself. He has never made salty rice dumplings.

 Aren’t all rice dumplings sweet? Can I eat something salty?

 (End of this chapter)