She Only Cares About Cultivation

New Year’s Eve is bound to be a busy day, not only to prepare ingredients for tonight’s reunion dinner, but also to see if there’s anything left undone. Although their home already has buns, dumplings, sticky bean bags, various fried foods prepared, cured fish, cured meat, salted fish, salted vegetables, frozen pears, frozen persimmons, frozen tofu, and other ingredients kept fresh outside in the icy weather, An Yi always feels it’s not quite enough.

Every household prepares for the New Year with chicken, duck, goose, pork, fish, shrimp, rice cakes, and seafood, but that’s the standard of living in later times.

Actually, in 1955, if you could eat a meal of white flour dumplings, especially with meat filling, it was already a dream come true for many people.

A lot of ingredients An Yi stored outside for freshness were placed in an icebox she made outside, built with square blocks of ice, just like the method of preserving food on the prairie.

The ingredients made this year with Angelina, are known to them. As for seafood, they did not know much, only aware she packed shrimp meat dumplings for An Ran alone. When she returned, she carried a bamboo basket, and they didn’t ask what was inside, naturally she didn’t mention it either. That’s how they could have chicken, fish, and meat during the New Year.

An Yi feels that after working hard for a whole year, if you don’t eat something good during the New Year, it’s at a loss, especially since this northeast region is a major grain-producing area. Yet, looking at what people eat, drink, and use daily, it’s all inconsistent with the legendary granary.

According to this calculation, it should be blamed on the northeast being too large, not every place has fertile black soil, is near rivers, has high production, and can keep everyone well-fed.

Especially now, every household has a lot of children, the more you give birth, the more you have to feed them, thus more grain is consumed, it’s a cycle.

An Yi wouldn’t care about others, she just needs to ensure the An family can eat their fill, including the nuts that are also treated as family members, and since they are girls, naturally you have to give them a bit more.

Speaking of nuts, she was being practical for herself by having them neutered, it was a bit overdone, indeed. But in this era raising a dog is already a big taboo, and within a few miles, the number of people feeding dogs is minimal. If it came home pregnant, wouldn’t she have to divide her attention to care for so many puppies?

It’s already a hassle raising it, she wouldn’t want another litter of puppies, so simply have it neutered, preventing any foolish actions, as for the future, let’s talk about it later.

At noon, they made a big pot of stew, slicing the fried tofu into strips, coated meat-filled lotus, kelp strips, bok choy, glass noodles, radish, bean sprout balls, blood tofu pieces, etc., without oil or stir-fry, directly placed at the bottom of the pot, added water and started stewing. When the Big Pot Dish was about five-cents cooked, cornmeal cakes were stuck on the pot sides, then covered to let the flavors meld.

In the room that was over 20 degrees indoors while outside was minus 20 degrees, everyone gathered around the stove, each scooped a bowl of stew, took a bite of crispy corn cake, ate a bite of stew, with a variety of meat and vegetables, oh how delicious it was. It felt like every sweat pore was relaxed.

"Sis, without following you, how would we have such blessings? We’ve never eaten like this in our whole lives, so happy that even dying now doesn’t seem regrettable."

Angel ate while wiping her tears, touched by the moment. Anna was using An Ran’s small chopsticks to help her break open the blood tofu, shook it a couple of times when the temperature felt just right, then fed it to the waiting An Ran sitting in the basket, who was savoring it with her little mouth, utterly enjoying the taste.

Today, the pot of stew didn’t have any seasoning added, just a little salt, yet the effect achieved was amazing, it was extremely delicious, unbelievably so.

"Sis, your grace towards both of us, I don’t know how we will ever repay it."

"Trying to repay?"

The sisters nodded simultaneously.

"Simple, get into college, any university, as long as you get in, it would be the best repayment for me. By then, An Ran and I can enjoy your blessings as well, spending winter with you in the city, wouldn’t it be great?"

An Yi said lightly, although they all knew, getting into university isn’t that easy. Especially now that An Yi can help them with high school and college review and preparation, can they?