Chapter 667: Chapter 667: Dried Sweet Potatoes

The two of them got up, took out some food from their space to fill their stomachs, and then went to the Qiao Family’s house.

As for the Tong Family, as long as no one from there came looking for them, they would not take the initiative to go there for now.

When they arrived, Qiao Changshun had already gone to the fields. Qiao Zhaodi and Qiao Yindi were sweeping the yard and feeding the chickens respectively. Zhuang Luhe sat under a tree, knitting, and Qiao Dami was working on his calligraphy.

“Your father has gone to dig up sweet potatoes at the manor,” said Zhuang Luhe.

She didn’t mention a word about the two of them disappearing for a day.

It’s quite normal for newlyweds to disappear for a day or two.

Upon hearing this, Xiaomai and Tong fetched an ox cart and headed for the manor.

It was harvest time and all the families in Anping Village were busy, so fewer people came to work. Only ten came today.

Xiaomai pondered for a moment and raised the wage to eight wen.

A few days ago, she had asked Miao Dali to hurry up and build a warehouse. Now, the large warehouse had been completed, and she ordered people to put the freshly harvested sweet potatoes in it.

She planned to make more than half of these fifty acres of sweet potatoes into dried sweet potatoes for sale, and kept the rest for their own consumption.

As a snack in the future generations, dried sweet potatoes were not cheap. Here, she was the innovator, and coupled with the fact that her sweet potatoes were superb, she was planning to make a fortune.

For the soybeans, she sold one-third of them as edamame and planned to store the rest to make tofu and dried bean curd sticks, which she would naturally sell at a high price.

The process of making dried sweet potatoes should not be exposed to outsiders, so Xiaomai ordered people to build a wall around the warehouse.

After all these matters were taken care of, a week had passed.

The Tong Family had been silent, leaving Xiaomai and Tong undisturbed. By this time, the first batch of dried sweet potatoes Xiaomai made was ready.

There were too many people at the manor, so they couldn’t begin the work there. So on the first day, she brought back a cartload of sweet potatoes, washed them, steamed them in a pot, cooled them slightly, then cut them into strips.

Earlier, she had asked Qiao Changshun to prepare a rectangular mesh made of woven willow branches with holes, similar to a fence, especially for drying sweet potatoes.

They put the willow mesh on a bench and placed the cut sweet potato strips on it.

Although it was autumn, the heat of the Indian summer was intense and the sunlight was very strong, so the drying could be finished quickly.

The surface of the dried sweet potato strips was covered with a layer of crystallized sugar. It was fragrant, sweet, and chewy when tasted.

The dried sweet potatoes made this way were not hard, unlike those in the modern era that would crunch in the mouth. These dried sweet potatoes were soft and suitable for both the old and the young. Both the elderly with poor teeth and children could eat them.

However, this process had no technical content, and was far simpler compared to making dried tofu.

Therefore, it could only be secretly made at home.

Moreover, if it was taken to Jiwei Residence and Zuixian Building, the chefs there could quickly figure out how to make it.

But Xiaomai was not worried about this. Her dried sweet potatoes relied not on technique, but the quality of the sweet potatoes. Blessed by the Spiritual Spring water, she believed that the wealthy people would definitely be willing to buy them.

The first batch of dried sweet potatoes weighed around two hundred jin. Fifty jin was left for them to eat and the remaining one hundred and fifty jin were taken to the town by Xiaomai and Tong.

First, they had to send some to Dean Gu and Yang Ye. Dean Gu was a treasure of the town and county, so they had to express their gratitude.

Yang Ye had helped them quite a bit, so they should show their thanks to him, too.