Monsoons and Prickly Pears

Last Saturday, Mardi and her sister Marci decided to make Prickly Pear jelly (and whatever other goodies they could devise from the delicious fruit) Marci stopped on her way down to our place and spent about an hour picking the fruit. Our monsoon rains have loaded the desert with fat ripe fruit! It's truly a crime not to use it if you can. I loved her description of how she chose the fruits. "I left the high ones for the birds and the low ones for the lizards and other little critters. So, if you see a patch of cactus with a band picked clean around the middle.........those are mine!"
She arrived with two, nearly full, five gallon buckets of cactus fruit, ripe and ready. By now, Mardi had called our good friends Marika and Sandy partly as reinforcements and mostly to just join in the fun. In no time, they had pots and cauldrons boiling on the big commercial stove in the outdoor kitchen. It Was Hot as Hell, even with the cooler "blasting". (so we work in our swimming suits, a quick dip in the pool now and then really helps)

Meanwhile, they had all put their heads together and devised a rather elaborate straining system using about everything we have. Cactus fruit has small stickers on it (no big deal) but there are also these almost microscopic little buggers which can really cause havoc. They are so fine, they will get inhaled! The final stage was to pour through several layers of muslin and a paper coffee filter. The bounty from all this was about eight gallons of prickly pear cactus juice. Nectar of the desert! We poured several gallons into ice cube trays to freeze for later use.

Sunday, Mardi and Marci began making the actual jelly. Recipes abound for this process but none of them seem to be complete or they are contradictory with each other. You just have to read between the lines and be a little creative. After a couple of false starts, the jelly was piling up like a real canning line.

It tasted wonderful! I took some of the juice and blended it with my Hummingbird mix.

They love it too!

Marci arrived Monday morning with her "Cordial Maker" a kind of odd little machine that looks to be a cross between an ice cream maker and a yogurt machine. What the Hell, let's try it. You simply take about half cactus juice, half vodka and some sugar and pour it into this contraption. Set the dial and wait a few hours. Voila! You have Prickly Pear Cordial! Simple as that. Hmmmmmmm...I think we may be onto something here. Sweet, thick, and it packs a kick! It looks as if we may need a few liters of this stuff just to make it through the winter.

The next plan is to devote a few gallons of juice to cactus wine. We have most of the stuff already and the fruit is ready to pick! I'll let you know how it turns out, in a few months.

Chow!