The first snowfall in the Northern Forest was particularly heavy. Wen Qian stood in the yard, watching the flurries descend from the sky, making it appear crowded above.
Wen Qian had erected a few straw awnings she made herself over the well and stove, which she could lift when needed.
The ground quickly turned white, and the distant mountains gradually took on a coat of white as well.
Wen Qian turned and lifted the awning to go back inside, closing the door behind her. The room was filled with the aroma of sweet potatoes.
She made sweet potato strips by cutting steamed sweet potatoes into strips and baking them in a small oven on the warm stove, resulting in sweet and soft sweet potato strips.
While the sweet potatoes were steaming and baking, she began slowly processing the grains she had harvested in the kitchen.
Such as peanuts that had been sun-dried but not yet removed from their stems, and sweet potatoes and potatoes that had been dug up from the ground but not sorted by size.
As for the wheat she had harvested as a whole, she removed the wheat ears and separated them from the stalks, planning to sun-dry the wheat ears later before removing the wheat grains.
If she wanted to eat from this year's harvest, she would prepare a little bit to eat fresh, while storing the rest in her space.
After all, the kitchen wasn't large, and processing many things wasn't as convenient as doing it outdoors.
Such as the soybean stalks from which she hadn't yet removed the soybeans.
However, with everything stored in her space, along with previous stockpiles, she wasn't in a rush to eat much of this year's produce except for tasting it fresh.
She made herself a cup of water with jam, made by a neighbor from honey and berries, which was also nice to drink.
With fires burning in both rooms indoors, Wen Qian felt a bit lazy, and the repetitive work made her feel bored.
On one side of the kitchen, a wall was neatly stacked with firewood. She didn't feel like making clothes or weaving straw awnings at the moment.
So she planned to take out many foods from her space and try various preparations.
She didn't have time to gather too many wild vegetables now, at most just casually collecting some local specialty wild vegetables.
The wild vegetables she had collected in Xia Province were the most plentiful, because the grain yield there was so low, and there wasn't much game, so she didn't miss any opportunity to dig for wild vegetables.
Now those vegetables were still piled up in her space, so Wen Qian carefully processed the wild vegetables she had previously gathered in Xia Province with a cutting board and knife.
Wild vegetables taste too plain, so if she wanted to stir-fry them, she would use lard.
Now that she had more game, she would also collect fat from various other wild animals to render into oil for stir-frying vegetables.
But the best way to use wild vegetables was to add oil, salt, and lean meat, and chop them into fillings to make dumplings.
Therefore, she also planned to make more dumplings during the winter.
It was only in winter that she realized she had forgotten something very important - making cured sausages.
After coming to the Northern Forest, she didn't make them the first winter, and although she made a lot of cured meat the second year, she didn't get around to making cured sausages.
She had originally planned to make them again in the third year, but this autumn she didn't have time to make cured meat, so she also forgot about cured sausages.
Most of the meat she had this year was fresh and stored in her space. When she took it out to make dumpling fillings, she remembered.
Since she couldn't make the cured, fragrant sausages, she decided to make baked fragrant sausages instead, which could be baked dry in the oven and would also be good.
Fortunately, she had all the ingredients, and using a meat grinder to grind the fillings was much more convenient than chopping by hand.
She also had a simple pasta machine. After kneading the dough, she rolled it into thin, long strips and passed them through the pasta machine to flatten them into thin, long sheets.
She then used a round object to press out dumpling wrappers from the sheets, and could then wrap the dumplings.
All the dumplings were packed into plastic containers or ziplock bags and stored in her space. Whenever she wanted to eat them, she could conveniently take them out to pan-fry or boil them.
She made these in batches, cleaning the wild vegetables one day, grinding the lean meat the next day, pressing the dumpling wrappers the third day, taking one task per day, spending a total of eight or nine days on the entire dumpling-making process.
Afterwards, she continued grinding meat to stuff into sausages. The casings for these sausages were purchased in bulk online earlier.
Although she would also collect small intestines from other wild animals when hunting, they ultimately couldn't compare to the ready-made casings she had previously ordered online.
So she was still able to eat sausages this winter, which were particularly thick since she made them herself.
They were quite good when lightly dried and steamed, and became harder like cured sausages when baked longer.
She also stored some in jars in her space, which could be taken out next autumn to be sun-dried, turning them into cured sausages.
If food kept in a fridge would spoil after too long, storing it in her space was like stopping time.
Any half-processed food could be put in there, then taken out at an appropriate time to continue processing.
An ordinary dumpling, for example, could have the filling made in the first year, the wrapper rolled out in the second year, and the dumpling wrapped in the third year.
All of this was made possible by her space, so none of Wen Qian's accumulated food would go to waste.
She even saved her kitchen waste, storing it to make compost the next year instead of throwing it away carelessly.
Even though she had many things in her space, she would never waste them recklessly, as they were bought with the hard-earned money of her grandparents.
Even the soil she had dug up from various places, she would find a way to put it to use.
She had been frugal even before the calamity, and having the space made her even more so.
This year, she kept two rabbits in her kitchen, planning to let them survive the winter since she would have enough food.
Initially, when she worried that spring might come late next year, she wasn't concerned about not having enough to eat herself, but first about her planting plans for next year.
Secondly, it was the neighboring family who had many mouths to feed. If spring was severely delayed, their food supply would also be a major problem.
However, she noticed they had been hunting extensively before the snow, so she thought they must have prepared sufficiently.
This winter, Wen Qian's way of passing time was threshing the wheat.
She felt she might have worked too hurriedly this past year, as her back and waist were starting to ache.
So this winter, she planned to exercise properly and rest well.
The first snowfall lasted for three consecutive days, and subsequent snowfalls were also quite heavy.
Wen Qian barely left her yard, except to go to the outer corridor for a while to record the outdoor temperature.
