PrissyCook

Admittedly, I get myself worked into a frenzy when there are harvestable items in Arizona. I don’t want to hash out old news, but for those of you who have visited my blog from time to time, you’ll recall my citrus bandit phase this  past spring.

I’m trying to control it, but it is prickly pear season, and I feel like I need to get while the gettins good.

There are several methods you can use to juice prickly pears and I don’t suggest hand picking them as I attempted last year. Gloves, tongs and protective body wrap are necessary (maybe the last suggestion is a little extreme, but seriously, wear gloves and use tongs).

I learned how to juice the fruit with a pillow case. You can learn more about it in an article on AZCentral.com.

Simply, you take a batch of 12-15 prickly pears, rinse, put them in a pillow case, place the pillow case in your pot and put enough water to cover the fruit, about 1″ and simmer until the fruit is soft. With a masher, mash the fruit. You’ll see the water quickly turn a brilliant pink. With your tongs, squeeze out the excess moisture. That’s all it takes to get the juice from a prickly pear.

I put my gloves back on to dump the excess skin and seeds out of the pillow case into my composter. One interesting note is that the prickly pear will not stain your pillow case! Seriously, it’ll turn hot pink, but it won’t stain. Wash it and you’d never know the difference.

I keep a stash of extra salsa and pickle jars. I filled several jars with the prickly pear juice to use later in the year to mix in jams, syrups and sauces.

Here’s a jam recipe shared by African Kelli:

To every 2 1/2 cups of juice
Add 1 (1 3/4 oz.) package powdered pectin
Boil for a couple minutes
Add 3 tablespoons lemon juice and 3 1/2 cups sugar.
Stir often and boil hard for 5 minutes.
Pour in jelly glass and seal with paraffin.

I followed the preserving method from Ball for high acid fruits when I was ready to seal the jars.

Here are some other Prickly Pear recipes:

Prickly Pear Lemon Green Tea
Prickly Pear Margarita
Prickly Pear Lemon Cupcakes
Prickly Pear Arnold Palmer

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