Era: Started from raising livestock in the mountains

The soaked and swollen soybeans turned into a snow-white slurry under the action of the stone grinder and flowed out. With a slight hissing sound, a lot of white foam appeared, like white clouds.

"Dad, what is this?"

When Lin Heng and Xiulan weren't paying attention, Xiaoxia picked up a lot of white foam and played with it curiously.

"This is delicious. It will be ready for you in a moment." Lin Heng looked at her and replied, then carried her away.

In Lin Heng's arms, Xiaoxia playfully rubbed foam on his face. Lin Heng helplessly touched his little face and said, "Just stay here, there will be something delicious soon."

Xiaoxia was quite well-behaved and played with the foam on her hands without causing trouble. After a while, Lin Heng and Xiulan finished grinding the soybeans.

Fifty pounds of soybeans were ground into five buckets of coarse pulp. After rinsing all the residue on the stone grinder, Lin Heng looked at his mother and said with a smile, "How about it, Mom? It's much faster than grinding by yourself."

Mother Lin raised her chin and said, "The food ground by cows is not as delicious as the food ground by hand."

This made Lin Heng laugh: "Okay, next time you can grind it slowly by hand."

Her mother was simply an early Soul Eater.

After saying that, he picked up two buckets of ground coarse pulp and walked back. Xiulan took Xiaoxia back to boil water.

Next, you need to boil water, initially dilute and scald the thick slurry, and finally remove the scum and use a cloth bag to filter out the bean dregs. What is left is soy milk.

There are only two big pots in his house, and they definitely can't make fifty kilograms of tofu.

But Lin Heng already had a countermeasure. He directly took out a large wooden basin with a diameter of two meters and a height of fifty centimeters, poured water into it and heated it as fast as possible.

While the water was boiling, Xiulan prepared some tofu plaster and cut the mugwort into thin strips to make mugwort tofu.

Lin Heng took dried chili peppers and garlic and pounded them in a small stone mortar to make garlic chili, ready to be eaten later.

After finishing it, Xiulan looked at Lin Heng and asked, "Do you want to eat ordinary cabbage and tofu?"

Lin Heng looked at Qie's pot of mugwort, smiled and shook his head: "No need, mugwort tofu is delicious, you can make some if you want."

Ordinary vegetable tofu is made from cabbage leaves and tastes pretty good.

"Then make some, the water hasn't boiled yet anyway." Xiulan thought for a while, picked some cabbage leaves and chopped them into pieces, preparing to make tofu for a while.

After waiting for more than half an hour, the water in the tub was finally so hot that it was almost scalding. Lin Heng and Xiulan immediately stood up and poured the ground coarse slurry in. After stirring evenly, it was time to filter.

Place the wooden rack on top of the pot, and place a small square basket on top of it. In the basket is a cloth bag.

Filtering tofu is a very labor-intensive job, so Lin Heng naturally took up the task at home.

Xiulan rolled up Lin Heng's sleeves and said with a smile, "Take your time. If it's hot, ice it in the water."

"good."

Lin Heng nodded, opened the white cloth bag, and Xiulan scooped out the diluted pulp and poured it in.

The gap in the bag is very small and requires constant pressing to squeeze out the soy milk. The coarse pulp is hot, so Lin Heng had to stop and touch the cold water after pressing it a few times.

It took the two of them twenty minutes to filter out a pot of soy milk. Lin Heng looked at the remaining coarse pulp in the barrel, which was a bit big, so it could at least filter three pots.

Both of his pots are large iron pots with a mouth diameter of one meter, but even with such a large pot, it would take four pots to finish filtering.

Xiulan looked at his red hands and suggested, "Why don't we rest and do it again?"

Lin Heng shook his head, pointed to another big pot and said, "We can't leave this pot empty if we make another pot."

Moreover, the temperature of the coarse pulp has dropped a lot now, and Lin Heng's squeezed and filtered soy milk is no longer so hot.

It took another half an hour to filter out another pot of soy milk.

Xiulan wiped his sweat and said with a smile, "Just sit there and rest now. Leave the rest to me."

"Okay." Lin Heng sat aside with Xiaoxia.

Xiaoxia curiously asked what Lin Heng cooked. When she learned that it was sweet, her mouth opened and she swallowed.

…

"Dad, when can I drink?"

Every once in a while, Xiaoxia would always ask like this in a sweet voice.

"It's ready."

Lin Heng said with a smile.

The soy milk was already half-boiled, but Xiulan boiled it after adding fire.

"Here you go, let it dry for a while before drinking."

Xiulan served Lin Heng and Xiaoxia a bowl with a lot of sugar.

When it cooled down a bit, Xiaoxia couldn't wait to take a sip.

This was her first time drinking soy milk. The rich aroma and sweetness of the soy milk in one sip stunned her, and then she drank it in big gulps.

"Mom, more~"

She drank her small bowl in one go, then ran up to Xiulan with the bowl and begged for it with a sweet voice.

But Xiulan didn't give it to her, but said: "There will be something more delicious than this in a while."

Rejected by her mother, she turned to look at Lin Heng who had not yet finished drinking. She looked at him eagerly and whispered, "Dad, I still want to drink."

Lin Heng poured a little bit for her, and then drank the rest in front of her.

Xiaoxia seemed to know that she had no more, so she drank from the spoon one by one.

Xiulan lowered the heat and started ordering tofu.

This first pot does not make vegetable tofu, but all is made of tofu, ready to be used to make dried tofu or fermented bean curd.

They use gypsum here to order tofu, and they also use brine, but the tofu made with brine is too hard and not as soft as the tofu made with plaster.

As the gypsum water is added little by little, you can gradually see the tofu appear. Continue until the tofu is completely formed and the water turns clear yellow, which is considered complete.

This process is simple to say, but the amount of water in the gypsum is a test of people's experience. Too much of this stuff is bad for people, and it's unclear if it's too little.

However, Xiulan used to make tofu and sell it, so ordering tofu is very familiar to her and she can hardly make mistakes.

After ordering, take out the tofu mold and shape the tofu. Lin Heng’s family uses a square mold made of wood, but it is also made of bamboo.

There are small drainage holes at the bottom and all sides of the mold. After spreading the tofu cloth in it, you can scoop out the tofu curd and pour it in. Two pots of tofu curd can just fill the tofu mold with a side of 40 centimeters.

Wrap the tofu in cloth, cover it with a cover and press it tightly with a fifty kilogram stone. Wait an hour or two for the tofu to take shape.

After finishing it, Xiulan took Lin Heng's hand and looked at the time. It was already three o'clock in the afternoon.

She looked up at Lin Heng and said, "Let's get started and try to finish it before dark."

"good."

Lin Heng naturally had no objection to this. He added a little hot water to the cold slurry in the wooden basin, stirred it evenly, and then boiled the water and filtered it.

Half an hour later, Lin Heng looked at the thick pulp left in the wooden basin and said, "This is more than we expected. It can't even be filled in two pots."

There is about half a pot of thick pulp left, which is more troublesome.

Xiulan looked at Lin Heng and said, "It's okay. I'll make these into bean curd skins later. Do you want to eat bean curd skins or oil skins?"

Tofu skin is made by dotting the soy milk with gypsum, placing it in a grinder, pouring it over a layer of gauze, and repeating this process. It is essentially a very thin tofu.

There is no need to point out the oil skin. Put the soy milk in a pot and heat it, and a thin layer of skin will naturally condense on the surface of the soy milk. Pick it out and let it cool to become the oil skin.

The oil skin is much thinner than the bean skin, and the texture of the two is also different.

Lin Heng said with a smile: "Can you have some, we will have hot pot in a few days?"

Xiulan blinked: "Of course, you can stay with me."

"That's no problem."

Lin Heng assured, patting his chest.

Then the two started making tofu again. After boiling the soy milk, Xiulan put the chopped wormwood directly into the pot, stirred it evenly and started ordering the tofu.

As the bean curd condenses, mugwort becomes the backbone of each bean curd.

"I'm going out to call someone." Lin Heng said, and then went to call his parents, elder brother, and others.

Tofu is a very precious thing in rural areas of this era. It is usually only made during the Chinese New Year. At this time, the whole family will gather together to drink soy milk and eat tofu.

"My parents and eldest brother are all here to eat tofu nao." Lin Heng came over and said with a smile.

"I want to eat, I'll go first." Caiyun just came back. When he heard it was tofu nao, he was the first to run over.

"Okay, here you go!"

No one else declined. Everyone knew that there was no shortage of this thing now, and Lin Heng didn't like it when his own family members came and treated him politely. It was too boring.

On the way back, I called my sister-in-law and my three sons.

Lin Wei was doing his homework. When he heard about eating tofu, he got up and ran away with Lin Heng. He couldn't stop screaming.

After a while, a total of 11 people gathered in the main room of Lin Heng's house, and the laughter spread far away.

Lin Heng looked at everyone and asked with a smile: "Do you eat tofu with wormwood or without wormwood?"

"I want it with mugwort and spicy seeds." Father Lin said.

"I also want mugwort." Lin Yue said with a smile.

Almost all the adults choose Artemisia Seed and Tofu Pudding, and they want to eat the salty version with garlic and chili.

Lin Wei looked at Lin Heng and said loudly: "I want something sweet!"

Everyone looked at him, as if they were looking at someone else.

"What's wrong?" Lin Wei asked weakly.

"No, it's pretty good." Lin Heng smiled slightly, and went in to scoop out tofu buns with Xiulan for everyone.

Xiaoxia also got a bowl of sweet tofu and lay there eating it with Lin Wei and Lin Tao.

In Lin Heng's bowl was a bowl of mugwort and tofu. The mugwort and tofu were blended evenly. The salty garlic chili was added and he was completely satisfied after one bite.

The tofu is soft and tender, full of bean flavor, and also has the taste and texture of mugwort, giving it a bit of chewiness while being soft.

Coupled with the rich aroma of chili pepper and garlic, this wonderful taste and aroma can make you cry, especially in this era of extreme scarcity of material resources.

Everyone ate without saying a word, with happy smiles on their faces. From time to time, someone would say something delicious, and then continue eating.

"It's so cool!"

After blowing it, Lin Heng said with emotion, although it was spicy, it tasted really good.

The garlic chili is a bit spicy, Xiulan is also sucking it, her cheeks are red.

"tasty!"

Xiaoxia had already finished the food in the bowl, looked up at Lin Heng and Xiulan, and expressed that she wanted more.

Lin Heng thought for a moment and said, "Let's get her some more. It's still early to go to bed anyway."

"Okay." Xiulan nodded and went to scoop some more for Xiaoxia.

After scooping out Xiaoxia, Xiulan looked at her parents again: "Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister-in-law, would you like some more?"

Father Lin shook his head: "No, just eat a little and you still have to make tofu."

"Yes, that's enough." Lin Yue also said.

As they talked, they washed the bowls. Xiulan had to scoop some more for Lin Wei and other children, and the rest was made into tofu.

The box of tofu made before was successful. Xiulan took it out and put it on the chopping board, and then scooped the new tofu into it.

The mugwort tofu used the tofu box from Lin's father.

After these were done, it was dark, and Lin's father and others left one after another. Lin's mother heard that Lin Heng wanted to feed the bean dregs to Lin Musk and the horse, so she asked for some to make steamed buns for herself.

Lin Heng was helpless. His mother was too frugal, but this habit had been formed for forty years, and he had no way to change it. He could only take some bean dregs back for her.

This habit can only be slowly changed in the years to come.

After they left, Xiulan started to make tofu skin. She first made thirty oil skins, and then made more than ten tofu skins with tofu. Unlike pressed tofu, pressed tofu skins have to be super heavy.

Lin Heng placed a wooden basin directly on top, and when filled with water, it weighed more than 200 kilograms.

"Finally finished, so tired."

Xiulan took a deep breath and looked at the three boxes of tofu, which weighed more than 130 kilograms in total.

Generally speaking, one kilogram of soybeans can make two or three kilograms of tofu, and four or five kilograms of fat tofu.

Tofu contains a lot of water, so this amount is not much.

Lin Heng hugged his daughter and said with a smile: "What do you want to eat? I'll make it for you."

Xiulan shook her head: "Let me do it. You're also very tired. Let's go to rest after eating the noodles."

"That's fine." Lin Heng nodded.

It was already past nine o'clock after dinner, and it was almost ten o'clock when Lin Heng finished reading books and telling stories to Xiaoxia.

After going to bed, he lay down peacefully, staring at the dancing flames in the fireplace.

Xiulan hugged Lin Heng, and the two fell asleep in a daze.

Lin Heng had a nightmare at night. In the dream, he went hunting with his elder brother. When they were walking in the mountains, there were suddenly dense poisonous snakes all around them, and they couldn't kill them all.

Not only were there poisonous snakes, but in the end, a giant snake appeared and swallowed the two exhausted people directly into its stomach.

Lin Heng was awakened in the middle of the night. He took several deep breaths. When he felt Xiulan was beside him, his heart gradually settled down.

"Why would I suddenly have such a dream in the middle of the night!"

Lin Heng didn't understand. He had never thought about such a thing.

The feeling gradually disappeared when he hugged Xiulan tightly, but he couldn't sleep anymore.

"What's wrong?"

Xiulan felt Lin Heng's movements and woke up in a daze.

"Nothing, just a nightmare. I'll go add some firewood to the fireplace."

Lin Heng shook his head, got up and added some firewood to the fireplace, and then went to the toilet with a urinal.

It was only four o'clock in the morning when he saw the time. Lin Heng breathed a sigh of relief and continued to rest.

"It's okay, I'm here." Xiulan hugged Lin Heng tightly, patted his back and said softly.

"Yeah!"

Feeling his wife's warm embrace, the horror of the dream just now gradually disappeared.

It's really good to have someone to accompany him. He couldn't help but think of the feeling of waking up alone after a nightmare.

Finally, it's two hundred chapters.