Prickly Pear Fun!

Nope, this isn't a bread!  But my daughters and I have been dealing with prickly pears the last few weeks, so I thought I'd show you a sight seen rather frequently on my counter lately:

 

This is my extremely low-tech version of a prickly pear juicer.  There is more than one way to make use of a prickly pear, but as my family uses only the juice, this is the simplest way we have found.

Let's start at the beginning . . .

First, you need a nice patch of ripe prickly pears.  In some states, picking this fruit on public lands requires a permit, so be aware.  Fortunately for us, this patch is on private land.

 

Gather some intrepid prickly pear pickers, some tongs, and some buckets.  You really do want tongs for this.  Although the fruit, itself, does not have long spikes, it has tiny, hair-like spines which will get in your skin and hurt, if given the opportunity.  Tongs are good.  (By the way, picking prickly pears in the wind is a bad idea, too, as some of those tiny hair-like spines can loosen in the picking process and end up in your skin.  Don't ask me how I know.)

Use the tongs to gently twist the pears away from the cactus.  (The green pads, by the way, are also edible on certain varieties, but that's another story . . .)

 

When you've come home with your fruity loot, place them in a colander for cleaning and wash them the best you can under running water.  (Remember those tongs.)  You can use a scrubby brush to get off anything stubborn.

After rinsing off the fruit, place them in gallon-sized freezer bags and put them in the freezer.  This is to break down the cell structure of the fruit.

When the fruit has been frozen for 2-3 days or so, it is ready for juicing.  I place them in a colander (I'll be honest . . . it's a steamer piece which doesn't fit any of my pots), and place the colander over a bowl.

I then place something with weight on top of the frozen prickly pears.  In my situation, I've found the interior pot of my rice cooker, filled a little under half-way with water, fits neatly inside the colander/steamer and works very well.

Then walk away.

Yep, it's that easy.  After a few hours, the fruit will be juiced.  If you want, place it out on the counter when you go to bed and take care of it in the morning.

 

Here are what the prickly pears look like after the process--all nicely smushed.  (Beware of ones which stick to the bottom of your weight.)

And here is the juice . . .

 

One gallon freezer bag comfortably full of pears produces roughly three to four cups of juice.

People ask me, "What about the tiny spines?  Aren't they in your juice?"  To be honest, I've never had a problem with it.  Very rarely, I'll see one floating on the top, reasonably obvious to see on the shiny juice, so I fish it out with a spoon.  If it worries you, pass the juice through a very clean woven cloth, such as a cotton muslin.

If the juice will not be used right away, it can be frozen in quart-sized freezer bags.

 

Here is my stash (so far) in the freezer, with the newest bag in a glass container to prevent any potential leaking issues while the bag is freezing.  (It hasn't actually happened yet, but it pays to prevent incidents.)

 

"But what do you DO with all that juice?"  Good question.

We like to make pancake syrup.  I found a great recipe at Chile Chews for syrup, which is basically a jelly recipe without the pectin.  (You'll also notice she handles her prickly pear processing differently.)  Our syrup container can't handle an entire batch of this syrup, so I reduce the size accordingly:

2 cups prickly pear juice

1/3 cup lemon juice

3 1/3 cups sugar

Bring juices to a boil and boil for one minute.  Stir in the sugar.  Cook and stir until the sugar is all dissolved and the syrup is clear.

That's it!  (You can, by the way, add this syrup into a smoothie mixture . . prickly pear and banana smoothies . . . yum . . .)

As it is my husband's favorite syrup, this ends up using quite a bit of our juice store.  But because we managed to get more juice this year than we have in previous years, I'm also planning on making some into prickly pear lemonade, using one of the many recipes on-line.  It should be a lot of fun.

How does it taste?  Well . . . very fruity.