The happy little days of the Ye family

With the eager anticipation of the children in the whole village, New Year's Eve finally arrived.

Every household in the village is not rich. Although the weather has been good in the past two years and the villagers have opened up a lot of fields, they can only barely eat enough.

The sumptuous New Year’s Eve dinner is what the children in the village look forward to most throughout the year.

In addition to the New Year's Eve dinner, the most anticipated thing is the New Year's money.

On New Year's Eve, when the first rooster crows, every household in the village gets up.

Spring Festival couplets and bright red paper-cuts are naturally indispensable during the Chinese New Year.

Spring couplets and leaf mothers have been bought in the county a long time ago.

Although Ye Donglin and Ye Xilin both attended school and were literate, their writing was unsightly, so they had to let others make money.

The paper-cutting was done by Mrs. Ye herself. Although the workmanship was a bit rough, it was just for a festive occasion and what was cut was not important.

In addition, Ye Mu also bought several red lanterns in the county, and they were hung up brightly, which was also festive.

Ye Donglin, the tallest member of the family, was assigned by Ye's mother to put up Spring Festival couplets, paper-cutting, and hang lanterns.

Mr. Ye took his father and Ye Xilin to kill chickens and geese in the backyard. A total of two chickens and one goose were to be slaughtered today.

The chicken is easy to handle. Just scald it with hot water and the feathers will be plucked out in a few strokes.

But the goose has many tiny downs and hair tubes that are about to grow out.

These hair tubes on the body are too small to be cleaned by just wiping them with chicken feathers. They can only be carefully pulled out one by one.

Father Ye brought out three small benches, and the grandfather and grandson sat on the small benches to clean up.

The remaining female family members began to make fried goods under the leadership of Ye Mu.

Zhahuo Yemu plans to make croquettes and fried twists.

The meatballs include radish meatballs, tofu meatballs, sweet potato meatballs, pork meatballs and fish meatballs.

In previous years, there were only the first four types, but this year there happened to be a few big grass carp at home, and Ye Mu wanted to try making fish meatballs.

There are also two kinds of small twists, sweet and salty.

Mrs. Ye was very strong and was responsible for kneading noodles and making small twists. Tang Xiaojing was assigned to kill fish and meatballs in the backyard.

Ye Mu took Ye Chunyu and Ye Qingqing to make the remaining meatballs.

Several people divided the work and cooperated, and soon the whole Ye family was filled with the aroma of various fried foods.

Mother Ye and Mrs. Ye were frying various meatballs in the kitchen. They were afraid that some greedy cats would steal them, so Mrs. Ye quickly sent Ye Qingqing and others out of the kitchen.

Ye Qingqing and Tang Xiaojing went to the small vegetable garden to pick vegetables for today, while Wang Chunyu went to help Ye Donglin hang lanterns.

Ye Qingqing and Tang Xiaojing pulled some lettuce and a Chinese cabbage in the small vegetable garden.

Lettuce has the meaning of making money, and cabbage means wealth. They both have beautiful meanings and are suitable for the New Year's Eve dinner.

In addition to vegetables, Ye Qingqing also picked some green onions, coriander and ginger, which are the seasonings used for stewed meat.

In addition, green onions and ginger can also be used as dipping sauce for boiled chicken.

Tang Xiaojing and Ye Qingqing came back with vegetables and happened to meet Tang Shan at the door.

Tangshan was thinking about the sea fish he ate last time, so he asked friends in the county to help him get some sea fish and dried seafood a few days ago.

Afraid of delaying the New Year's Eve dinner, Tangshan drove the ox cart to the county before dawn.

Tangshan moved large and small bags of things from the bullock cart.

In addition to two large sea fish and a few fresh large squids, the rest are all kinds of dried seafood.

Ye Qingqing gathered around them curiously. Tangshan asked a friend to help him buy them. The two large sea fish were much larger than those Ye Mu had bought before, each weighing nearly three kilograms.

This was the first time Ye Qingqing had seen fresh squid. It was soft and had some mucus on it. Ye Qingqing was a little hesitant to touch it.

"Uncle Tang, how should I cook this squid?" My family has never eaten this squid, so I don't know if her mother can cook it.

"Squid has a fishy smell, so it needs to be stir-fried with onions, ginger and garlic." Tangshan said with a smile.

Tang Shan has lived in the county for many years and travels all over the country, so he has eaten this squid several times.

Tangshan gave Ye Qingqing the dry goods and asked her to take them back and put them away. Then he took Tang Xiaojing to the backyard to deal with the sea fish and squid.

Ye Qingqing took the dried seafood and went directly to the kitchen to find Ye Mu.

When Mrs. Ye saw such a big bag of seafood, she couldn't help but muttered: "Seafood is valuable, how much money does this big bag cost?"

Ye Qingqing opened the contents inside, which contained dried sea fish, dried squid, shrimp and kelp.

There was also something as big as Ye Qingqing's finger that looked like river clam meat.

Mrs. Ye and Mother Ye have fried all the meatballs and small twists.

Ye Mu brought out a big bowl filled with various kinds of meatballs. Little Mahua didn't take it but put some more fish meatballs in it.

Ye Mu asked Ye Qingqing to take the croquettes to Grandma Ye, while Ye Mu took the seafood on the table to the cellar and put it away.

After coming out of the cellar, Ye Mu put several bowls of groceries in small bowls for the neighbors to try.

It is said that distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors. The families next door to the Ye family are all easy to get along with.

Whichever company has good stuff will share some for everyone to try, so the relationship between the two companies has always been very good.

Ye Mu sent the fried goods to her neighbor, and when she came back, she harvested various other pastries and fruits, as well as a small jar of green plum wine.

The custom here is that on New Year's Eve, only breakfast and the New Year's Eve dinner in the afternoon are eaten, so the Ye family started preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner early.

The family members were ordered around by Mother Ye and Mrs. Ye.

Two chickens were killed, one was used to make plain chicken, and half of the remaining one was used for soup and half for cooking.

The custom here is to braise the whole goose with soy sauce. The fish is the same as last time, one steamed and one braised.

The smell of meat had spread to the Ye family early, but at this time every household in Taohua Village was busy cooking New Year's Eve dinner, and the whole village was filled with the smell of meat.

The Ye family’s New Year’s Eve dinner this year is very sumptuous, including bamboo fungus chicken soup, soy sauce braised goose, white-cut chicken, braised pork, braised chicken with dried mushrooms, stir-fried fresh squid, steamed sea fish, braised sea fish, stewed Chinese cabbage with dried shrimps and boiled Chinese cabbage. lettuce.

Every year is more than enough, so one cannot eat all the food for the annual dinner. However, the Ye family made eight dishes and one soup. Even if they indulged in the food, they could not eat half of it.

After the New Year's Eve dinner, it was already dark. Father Ye took out a candle and lit all the candles in the lantern.

After the New Year's Eve dinner, Tang Shan and Tang Xiaojing went home each carrying a red lantern. When they got home, they hung the lantern at the door of the hall.

The bright red lanterns also added a bit of joy to the Tang family.

After washing up, it was the time that Ye Qingqing and Ye Xilin were most looking forward to - collecting the new year's money.

The New Year's money given by the village is not much, only two or five cents, just for good intentions.

Mr. Ye, Mrs. Ye and Ye’s father and mother all gave them only ten cents as a gift in previous years.

Just for the sake of celebration, Ye Qingqing and Ye Xilin were also happy with the ten cents.

But this year, in addition to the four people above, Ye Qingqing and Ye Xilin, they can also get the new year's money from Ye Donglin and Wang Chunyu.

In order to get the new year's money, Ye Qingqing and Ye Xilin said all kinds of nice things casually, making everyone laugh.