Just then, Pei Xia came in from outside. "Since it's from Mother, you should take it," he said.
Seeing him nod, Qi Jiao carefully put away the box. She earnestly said to Tang Guiniang, "From now on, Mother, you must tell me all the big and small things in the family. You can't hide anything from me." She wanted to do her part.
Jiaoniang truly regarded her as a part of the family, and there was no more formality. Tang Guiniang was overjoyed and quickly agreed.
Time flew by, and in a blink of an eye, it was the eleventh lunar month.
In this month, Qi Jiao had taken on eight or nine rural banquets.
Due to the limited conditions in the countryside, most families were not as generous as the Zhu family before. Some only wanted a filling meal and didn't care about the presentation.
As the banquet specifications decreased, the payment also shrank accordingly. She earned a total of three taels and five hundred wen in a month.
Most of the silver she had previously earned had been spent on buying ducks and building a duck farm. The remaining money was used to buy some wind - blocking tents and other items to prevent the ducklings from getting cold.
Although it was only a little over three taels of silver, Qi Jiao felt extremely at ease.
She happily counted the money, found a clay pot in the corner, put the money into it, and then placed the money pot into a movable brick in the wall.
The hiding place was told to her by Pei Xia. He kept his own money there.
The first time Qi Jiao reached in, she felt a full three strings of cash.
Pei Xia said it was a habit he had developed since childhood. He put one wen into it every day, and over time, there were three thousand wen. This money was saved for emergencies, but now it all belonged to Qi Jiao, and she could use it at will.
Qi Jiao gave him a reproachful look and put the money back.
Each of them had a brick, so their income was clearly separated.
Qi Jiao used the money she earned to buy a batch of sea duck eggs and various jars. The duck eggs were mostly picked by the villagers in the mangrove forest, and the jars were not expensive, three for ten wen.
There were about three hundred sea duck eggs in this batch.
So Qi Jiao led Tang Guiniang, Pei Li, and Pei Jin to work at home for two days, making all of them into salted duck eggs.
Today was the day to open the jars.
Qi Jiao checked them all. Only a few were damaged and inedible, and the rest were very successful.
She planned to take a batch of salted duck eggs to the county to sell. If the market was good, she would come back and increase the production.
Speaking of the county, Qi Jiao was thinking about Miss Guo.
Miss Guo was already married. Since her wedding had been postponed for a while, it was held in the early part of this month.
Qi Jiao had asked Ye Yun to inquire and learned that Miss Guo would return to her natal home tomorrow.
Qi Jiao simply declined the invitations to two banquets today and thought about making some delicious food for Miss Guo to take to the county tomorrow.
Qi Jiao took out fifty salted duck eggs, cracked out the yolks, sprayed them with white wine, and baked them until the oil came out. Then she wrapped the salted egg yolks with fine red bean paste filling. This was the inner filling.
She divided the kneaded water - oil dough and oil - pastry dough into small pieces. She flattened a piece of water - oil dough, rolled the oil - pastry into a ball, wrapped it, rolled it into a circle, and then rolled it out. Thus, the crispy pastry was made.
She wrapped the prepared filling with the crispy pastry, tightened the opening, and turned the opening down. The salted egg yolk pastry was ready.
Besides the red bean paste flavor, Qi Jiao also made snow skin mooncakes with red bean paste and taro filling.
Then she greased the baking tray, put the prepared salted egg yolk pastry blanks on it, brushed the surface of the blanks with egg yolk liquid, sprinkled them with black sesame seeds, and baked them.
Speaking of baking, Pei Xia had improved on the design drawn by Qi Jiao and built a baking kiln in the backyard. Food could be placed in the middle, and charcoal could be placed both above and below for baking.
This made things much more convenient for Qi Jiao and introduced many grilled delicacies to the Pei family.
The baking kiln was quite large, so Qi Jiao simply made all fifty salted egg yolk pastries at once.
Pei Jin was helping her on the side, and Qi Jiao taught her a lot of pastry knowledge.
She found that Pei Jin loved sweet food very much and was also very interested in pastries.
Qi Jiao intended to teach her. Every time she made food, she would let Pei Jin watch, and when she went to handle banquets, she would take Pei Jin with her so that she could learn something while helping.
Now Pei Jin could already make simple white - case pastries.
The salted egg yolk pastries came out of the oven. Pei Jin couldn't wait to taste a red bean paste one. Her eyes curved into a smile, and she fed a taro - flavored one to Qi Jiao. Qi Jiao also thought it was satisfactory.
Then, while the iron was hot, she made beef tongue cakes and hawthorn pastries.
She remembered that Miss Guo liked milk - flavored pastries, so she planned to buy milk from Granny Cao's house.
Granny Cao was old and liked sweet and soft food. Qi Jiao specially made soft pumpkin steamed cakes. She also picked some of the pastries she had made, put them in a small bamboo basket lined with banana leaves, and went out to Granny Cao's house.
Pei Xia had gone out to sea, Pei Li was looking after the ducks in the duck farm, and Tang Guiniang had gone to tend the fields. So only Qi Jiao and Pei Jin were at home.
There were still pastries in the baking kiln. Qi Jiao asked Pei Jin to watch the fire and went to Granny Cao's house alone with the bamboo basket.
Granny Cao was a solitary old woman. Her husband and son had died early, and she had no grandchildren.
Qi Jiao had come here once with Pei Xia before. Granny Cao's house was very lonely.
She entered the door and saw Granny Cao sitting in the yard sunbathing, holding a big fat orange cat in her arms.
Both the old woman and the cat were sleeping with their eyes closed.
Qi Jiao put the food on the small table in the yard and gently called out, "Granny Cao."
Granny Cao opened her eyes, took a careful look, and then smiled. "It's A Xia's wife. Jiaoniang, why have you come to my place?"
Qi Jiao lifted the cloth on the bamboo basket. "Here, I've brought you some food. It just came out of the oven and is still hot."
Granny Cao's face broke into a big smile. She picked up a pumpkin steamed cake and started eating. She also broke off a piece and gave it to the fat orange cat in her arms.
The orange cat perked up when it smelled the fragrance. It meowed and quickly licked it clean.
Qi Jiao thought the cat was cute and reached out to pet it, but the fat orange cat didn't let her.
"Look at how arrogant you are. It's not a loss to let me pet you after eating what I made."
Granny Cao laughed heartily and handed the cat to Qi Jiao. "You sit down. I'll get you some rice tofu. I just made it yesterday."
Qi Jiao quickly said that Granny Cao didn't need to be so polite and explained her purpose.
Granny Cao immediately took a small wooden bucket and went to the cowshed to milk the cow.
Finally, Qi Jiao petted the cat for a while, carried a full bucket of milk, and left Granny Cao's house with two pieces of rice tofu.
Before leaving, she quietly put twenty copper coins under the fat cat's body. She thought Granny Cao would see them when she picked up the cat.
There were wild papayas growing on Xiaofeng Mountain. Qi Jiao went to pick a few.
Yes, she was going to make milk fans for Miss Guo.
First, she added half a ladle of sour water made from papayas into a pot and heated it until it was hot to the touch. Then she poured the milk into the pot. Under the action of acid and heat, the milk quickly solidified.
At this time, she quickly stirred it to turn the milk into filamentous curds.
Then she picked out the curds with bamboo chopsticks, kneaded them into a cake shape with her hands, rolled the two wings of the cake onto the chopsticks, and stretched one end of the chopsticks outward to make the curd roughly into a fan shape. Finally, she hung it on a fixed rack to dry, and the milk fan was ready.
The sun was strong today. Qi Jiao and Pei Jin hung all the milk fans in the yard and loosened them once in the middle. They were dry by afternoon.