When we go to town, we pass by a couple of spots along the roadside that are just covered in prickly pear with ripe fruit. It’s killing Vince that it’s there . . free . . and no one is doing anything with it. There are probably rail car loads of ripe fruit within a one mile radius of our house that no one is picking so . . Vince . . we cannot use every ripe prickly pear in this county! He wanted me to go with him to pick them. No! I am NOT going . . wading through snake infested brush, to get more free fruit.
He decided he would go do it. I said . . PLEASE do not get more than two buckets of fruit. I should have said one!
Tunas
Three buckets may not seem like much but it’s 15 gallons of fruit to be processed.
Prickly Pear Syrup
I can’t be angry with him because this stuff is so darned good! There are two double batches of prickly pear syrup in the canner now. It is so good for prickly pear lemonade, prickly pear tea and prickly pear juice is said to have health benefits. Probably not under the heading of healthy drinks but prickly pear syrup does amazing things to a margarita.
Prickly Pear Margarita
Only one though . . there’s a whole lot of pears to juice and a whole lot of syrup and jelly to be made before bedtime!
Pat Pollock says
Oh, how I wish I could be the one picking some of that. I used to get prickly pear jelly before my Arizona in-laws died. Of course, there is no such fruit available in Wisconsin. I would glady process a 5-gallon bucket or two! It is so..o…o good!
Pat says
We could only hope it is good for kidney stones!
Dottie N. says
Looks so YUMMY!
jean moore says
can you use the Pomona pectin to make prickly pear jelly, and have you made any using it?
Diana says
Do you put them in your steamer ? The juice looks delish !
Brandy M. says
Looks sooooooo good!!! 😀
Can’t go wrong with free fruit. Does it just grow wild?
Sally says
Just finished making 14 jars of cactus pear/jalepeno jelly from all the prickly pear cactus in my yard (drank a bunch of juice too). Yummy! I love this bounty every August/September!
Sherrill says
WTG Vince!! He’s probably just so glad to not have to do EVERYTHING around the place, he was looking for something to do!! Looks like that would be very good and I notice the cactus since you started was it last year? But I don’t have one of those fancy steamers and am NOT going to be buying one. So I’ll just think of you when I see them ripening.
Sheryl says
It’s a gorgeous color!
Kathy C in OR says
I ‘hear’ it makes a GREAT margarita.
Janna says
Who knew you could make margaritas with prickly pear juice??? I’m still chuckling Judy!
Sally says
Judy, so where’s the recipe for the margaritas?? I just happen to have a wee bit more juice……