Prickly pear juice

I have a huge prickly pear cactus in my front yard that is encroaching on the public street. I know I need to trim it back three feet this year before someone gets hurts. Since this giant cactus is on my property, I can legally harvest the fruit of this prickly pear without a permit. Otherwise all cactus and succulents are protected under Arizona's Native Plant law, which forbids the harvesting of any cactus or succulent on public lands without a permit. Cactus and succulents on private property can be harvested for its fruit without a permit.

I was waiting for this year's fruit to ripen first, before removing any of the pads. Fruits tend to mature in late July, early August and there were enough dark purple fruit this morning to harvest my first two-gallon bucket of the fruit.

There are plenty of good recipes on-line to follow for prickly pear jellies. I wanted the juice instead, as it's known to be full of anti-oxidants and vitamin C.

I scrubbed the fruit in cold water, using a new scouring pad to remove the small glochids off the skin, those nearly invisible little spines on the fruit that easily get dislodged in skin and clothing.

Then I soaked the fruit for 30 minutes, and then peeled the skins off each fruit one-by one. The skins were about 1/3-inch thick, often half the fruit's size, and once the skin was removed, revealed small pulps of thick seed masses encased in magenta pulp. By the time all the fruit were skinned, there was very little of the fruit there. The fruit reminded me of a pomegranate: more seeds than flesh!

I dumped all the skinned fruit into my blender and pressed the "liquify" button. Within a few minutes I had a tasty mass of pulpy juice, leaving the heavy seeds, another 1/3 of the fruit, to through out in the front yard. By the time I was done I had two 12-ounce glasses of fruit juice, which I sweetened with a tablespoon of sugar and a dash of lemon juice.

The juice tasted like cranberry laced with water mellon.

In two weeks the rest of the fruit will be harvestable and once again I'll make some juice. Or maybe I'll try my luck at making some jellies? I now have found a tasty and easy recipe for the prickly pear in my front yard. It's no longer a nuisance weed, but a plant that brings me tasty tart juice.