80s Transmigration: The Young Widow's Hustle to Riches

Chapter 389 - 387: Vegetable Crackers

Li Xiangyang patted him on the butt. "Hurry back inside. Grandpa has the noodles ready. Dawdle any longer and they’ll get all lumpy."

Little Douzi rubbed his bottom. "You didn’t tell me Grandpa had already cooked the noodles! You’re the one holding things up."

"Heh, you’ve got a quick tongue, don’t you? Getting quicker every day."

"Mom said I started talking earlier than other kids."

The two of them ran back inside. Old Li had already brought the noodles to the dining table, complete with a poached egg nestled inside.

Little Douzi looked around. "Uncle Xiangyang, why isn’t Mom up yet?"

Li Xiangyang smiled. "Mom was taking inventory yesterday and got a little tired. Let’s let her sleep in a bit."

Little Douzi nodded. "Yeah, Mom has to make pastries, too. It’s hard work. She should sleep in."

"Such a good boy!" Li Xiangyang said, full of praise.

"Little Douzi, let’s go!" Dandan and Little Hai’s voices called from outside.

Seeing him about to leave his bowl, Old Li quickly said, "Have a few sips of broth before you go."

"Okay!" Little Douzi took a couple of sips of the broth, then went to grab his little backpack. "Grandpa, Uncle Xiangyang, I’m off!"

The two men nodded, and Old Li added a reminder, "You just ate, so don’t run too fast."

"Okay!" His voice trailed off as he was already running out of the yard.

Lin Lan came downstairs and saw Li Xiangyang washing the dishes. She shot him a mock glare. "You didn’t wake me up again. I need to set my alarm for next time."

"I’ll be sure to wake you next time." Li Xiangyang looked at her, his face all smiles. "Qiaohui and the others can handle things. You don’t need to be such a mother hen, worrying about every little thing." He chuckled, then added, "There are still wontons in the fridge. Should I boil some for you, or would you prefer a fried egg?"

"Let’s do wontons." Lin Lan took the wontons out of the fridge. "I’ll go pick a handful of pea shoots to go with them."

Li Xiangyang pointed to some pea shoots in a bamboo basket. "We still have some here. Little Douzi said he wanted scallion pancakes, so he picked a bunch of green onions."

"Right." Lin Lan recalled what Zhou Xiaohong had discovered. "Xiangyang, Sister Zhou had some clothes stolen from her place yesterday. She said one of them was Zhang Yazhen, and the other looked a lot like Liu Jinbao..."

"They’re courting death!" Li Xiangyang said with disgust. "That sort of lazy, conniving trash is always scheming for a free ride." He paused, then added, "I’m heading to the commune later. I’ll talk to Sister He’s husband while I’m there."

Lin Lan nodded. "Right. I need to buy carrots and other vegetables today to make vegetable crackers for the Vehicle Factory’s kindergarten. I also need to check on the clothing store. If they get robbed again, Little Xue and her sister will really be in tears."

"Yongmei’s health is always up and down. She came back from the provincial capital a little while ago, and the medicine they prescribed is helping, so she’s doing a bit better. The two sisters are smiling a lot more and have been working hard selling inventory to earn money for Yongmei’s medicine."

"You can have anything in the world, but you can’t have sickness. Good health is more important than anything," Li Xiangyang sighed. He then added, "As the saying goes, ’you can’t have order without rules.’ But that money we deducted... let’s give it back to them in a red envelope at the end of the year."

"Okay." An idea suddenly occurred to Lin Lan. "After we buy that plot of land, we should set a piece aside for them to build a house. You should ask Zhigang and Shuiqing if they’re interested."

"Zhigang already has a house. Shuiqing was going to buy one, but then his wife had a relapse, so he backed out. I offered to lend him the money, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said borrowing money for medicine was a necessity, but he couldn’t justify borrowing to buy a house when the one provided by the civil defense patrol is perfectly fine to live in."

"You should go talk to him. If he doesn’t buy now, it’ll be even harder to buy later."

Li Xiangyang nodded and put the pea shoots in the pot to blanch. Lin Lan grabbed a slotted spoon, scooped the pea shoots out, and placed them in her bowl. "You have some more."

Li Xiangyang shook his head, smiling. "No, I’m good. I had a big bowl of saozi noodles this morning."

Carrying her bowl, Lin Lan sat down at the small square table by the wall. "You can head out. After I finish eating, I’m going straight to the South City Market to do some shopping."

"Okay, I’ll go check on the store first." Li Xiangyang untied his apron and hung it on a hook. "I won’t be back for lunch."

After leaving the commune, he also had to go to the pig farm. A few of the local black pigs had given birth to piglets.

"Go on," Lin Lan nodded and started eating.

By the time she reached the South City Market, it was already past nine o’clock. Lin Lan bought a basket of carrots, a few bunches of spinach, and a dozen or so pounds of onions. She hung them on the back rack of her bicycle and pushed it toward the bakery.

As she passed the butcher’s stall, Yang Zhigang called out to her again, grinning. "Lin Lan, I bought a basket full of chicken of the woods mushrooms. Let me put them on your bike for you to take home."

Lin Lan glanced at the mushrooms in the basket. They were all the kind whose caps had just started to open—the most delicious variety. "These are perfect. This afternoon, I’ll fry them to make some mushroom-infused oil. That way, we can enjoy them for a while."

"Mushroom oil is best mixed with noodles." Yang Zhigang placed the basket on the back rack, tied it down with a rope, and gave it a couple of shakes. "There, it won’t fall."

Lin Lan nodded and pushed her bicycle back to the bakery. Tong Xinglan was in the shop, and when she saw her return, she hurried out to help take down the basket of mushrooms.

Tong Xinglan looked at the mushrooms in the basket in surprise. "Why’d you buy so many? Can you finish them all?"

Lin Lan laughed. "I’ll clean them and fry them into an infused oil. It’ll keep for a long time without spoiling. It’s just a lot of trouble."

Washing these mushrooms was a meticulous job. The base of the stems was caked with yellow mud, which had to be scraped off with a small knife before washing. Then, they had to be scrubbed clean with a toothbrush. The whole process required a lot of patience.

The two of them carried everything to the backyard, where Qiaohui and Lin Yuezhen were making pumpkin cakes at a worktable. Seeing that Lin Lan had bought so many mushrooms and carrots, they assumed she was planning to make a new kind of pastry.

Qiaohui said, "Cousin, Sister Zhao came by this morning asking about the small crackers. I told her we have them."

Lin Lan pointed to the carrots, onions, and spinach. "This is what the small crackers are made of."

Qiaohui looked at Lin Lan in surprise. "These are all vegetables. You can make crackers out of vegetables?"

Lin Lan gave her an amused look. "You silly goose, how else would you make vegetable crackers?" Then she looked over at Lin Yuezhen and added, "Your baby will have crackers to eat soon enough."

Lin Yuezhen glanced at her stomach and gestured with a smile. "It’ll be a long time before this one is eating crackers!"

Qiaohui laughed. "My mom always says children grow up in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, they’ll be running all over the place."

Lin Lan set the chicken of the woods mushrooms under the eaves. She poured out the carrots and onions, peeled and washed them, then cut them into chunks and put them into her new food processor to be ground up.

Lifting the lid of the food processor, she was hit by a pungent smell, and Lin Lan quickly turned her head. "Thank goodness for this machine. I’d be helpless against all these onions otherwise."

Qiaohui teased with a grin, "Your husband treats you so well. Every time he goes to Yangcheng City, he’s always thinking of buying useful machines for you."

Lin Lan smiled. "Yes, these machines save us a lot of effort."

She measured out the flour, sugar, yeast, baking soda, and peanut oil, then squeezed the excess water out of the carrot and onion purees.

She added the carrot puree, onion puree, and a pinch of black pepper to the flour, then put everything into the dough mixer to form a dough. Afterward, she removed the dough, placed it in a ceramic bowl, covered it, and let it rest for half an hour.