It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

Chapter 223

Along with the cold came an even longer night. Jiang Yan sat on the kang, wrapped tightly in his reed jacket, took out a small wooden mortar and pre-roasted cliff fruit seeds, and began to crack the shells.

Not long ago, when she went into the mountains to pick fruits, she forgot to pay attention to her surroundings and accidentally entered a woodland she had never been to before. Only then did she notice this fresh crop.

The cracked fruit looks a bit like chestnut bags without thorns, falling to the ground one by one. The seeds inside are black and hard, and look more like chestnuts.

Jiang Yan used dry grass to weave a straw basket, picked up a few of them with branches and took them home. Then he took them to the county town to ask people, and only then did he find out what this thing was.

People in Rongcheng County call it cliff fruit because the tree grows not only on barren slopes and valleys, but also on the edge of cliffs. Some people eat the flowers and leaves, but the kernels are the best.

In early autumn, the kernels are still white. Eating them one by one, they really do taste like chestnuts, with a hint of sweetness. Jiang Yan remembered this even more. She was late picking them this year, but she must eat them next year.

Is it still edible after the shell turns black and hard? The person who explained the problem to Jiang Yan had never tasted it and was not sure, so he asked her to try it herself.

Jiang Yan controlled the force to smash the shell of the cliff fruit seed, took out the seed kernel inside with a distinct nutty aroma, and took a sip.

It tastes good, but it doesn’t taste like chestnuts, more like walnut kernels, and is oily.

Jiang Yan ate the whole pill and waited for a while. Seeing that he felt no discomfort, he boldly ate a handful as a snack.

Fortunately, she had picked up most of the basket with the mentality of eating it if she could, using it as a pellet if she couldn't, or using it as fuel at worst. It was really worth it.

Jiang Yan climbed down from the kang, moved the square stones at the foot of the wall, and threw the peeled shells into the slowly burning stove on the left side of the cave entrance.

This small hole connects Jiang Yan's bedroom and kitchen. She asked Grandpa Jiang Fa to help her dig it a few years ago so that she could add firewood without leaving the bedroom when it was cold.

It's a pity that a door cannot be cut out for the safety of the wall, otherwise it would be more convenient for Jiang Yan to enter and exit the kitchen, and she would not have to go through the trouble of being cold every time she goes out.

……

After washing up, Jiang Yan poured the remaining hot water into the wooden mortar and swirled it around a few times. When he was about to pour it out, he noticed some oil floating on the water surface.

Jiang Yan, with her extensive experience in cleaning pots and pans, guaranteed that she would never mistake that tiny, dim light that flashed by.

Jiang Yan held the wooden mortar close to the oil lamp, stared wide-eyed and searched carefully. After slowly rotating it several times, he finally found the almost invisible oil droplets attached to the inner wall.

She had just made this small wooden mortar not long ago, and she took it out to use today when she had some free time. She hadn't used any meat during this time... Jiang Yan immediately thought of the cliff fruit.

Even with her rough method of smashing the shell without breaking the kernel and leaving it sticking to the outer wall, a little bit of oil could be produced. If it were used to extract oil... Jiang Yan slapped her forehead lightly in annoyance. She should have thought of this when she was eating what looked like walnut kernels just now.

The next morning, the excited Jiang Yan took out ten pounds each of dried walnuts and walnuts from the newly tidied storage room. After shelling, one weighed only three and a half pounds, and the other weighed a little more, reaching four pounds.

Jiang Yan set up a seldom-used stone pot on the stove, first put the walnut kernels in it and stir-fried them carefully, then quickly scooped them out before they began to smell fragrant and were about to turn brown, and threw them into a stone mortar and pounded them repeatedly to crush them.

Then grind it finely, more carefully and patiently than grinding wheat flour.

Jiang Yan put the sticky walnut powder into another narrow-mouthed ceramic pot, added water and boiled it. After a while, oil floated on the water surface.

Jiang Yan kept skimming off the oil from the top until there was no more oil left from the walnuts in the pot.

The transferred oil is heated over low heat to force out the water inside, and the residue is removed, filtered, and dried.

……

On this day, Jiang Yan finally obtained less than a pound of traditional handmade walnut oil and a little more than a pound of traditional handmade cliff fruit oil, along with four pounds of undried walnut wet powder and five and a half pounds of cliff fruit wet powder.