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Inspired by the dark pink fruits ripening on the prickly pear cactus growing in the median of the road that leads to my parents’ house, my mom decided that after 20 years of living in the desert it was time to see what she could do with its bounty. And so she conscripted my aid to brew up a batch of prickly pear jelly. Jelly is one of those adventures in the kitchen that I had never undertaken and so I eagerly agreed to be party to the event. There are so many skills such as this that I somehow failed to acquire during my childhood years. My mom learned all this as she grew up in Oklahoma. As a kid, I was too preoccupied with riding my bike, swimming, playing pretend and hanging out with my friends to worry too much about how to make jelly. After all, why make jelly when you could go to the store and find rows and rows of all the jelly varieties you could ever want?! As an adult I can see the value in learning the ins and outs of home-making; economically and health-wise it makes good sense to purchase ingredients as far down the processed scale as possible. Also, there is so much pleasure to be had putting time and effort into the food you eat.
Our first task was to go out and harvest the prickly pear fruits. While removing cactus fruits from the state trust land that surrounds my parents house is a bit of a no-no, we did not see any issue in removing them from the landscaping in the median. After all, the rotten fruit would be bagged and tossed at the end of the summer and at least this way some of it would go to good use. To harvest prickly pear fruit all you need is a pair of tongs and a paper bag. Clamp the fruit gently with the tongs, give a little twist and the fruit comes off easily enough. My first attempt was not so very graceful and went something to the tune of “death grip on fruit, pull.” Half the fruit stayed attached to the plant and the other came away smooshed between the tongs. My mom raised her eyebrows at me. “Well, that one is no good. Do we need to switch tongs?” I gave a good-natured grumble; if I thought it was anything other than user error, I may have taken her up on her offer, but I was pretty sure a different set of tongs would have made exactly zero difference. I watched her execute the picking procedure and gave it another try. Success! Between the two of us, it did not take more than 10 minutes to harvest enough of the fruit (although in hindsight, in order to avoid a little mishap with fractions, we should have kept going another 5 minutes). We triumphantly paraded back to the house, desert bounty in tow.
The first step done and over with, the fruit of the cacti then sat in my mom’s refrigerator for several weeks. There is no real need to let the fruit sit for any length of time other than the general hectic nature of life. But finally a day came about when we had the time to devote to the project.
Like I said, I had never made jelly before and so I was amazed at the simplicity of the process. (Though I’m informed that the use of packaged pectin was to thank for much of that ease. Maybe next time I will learn how to use apples for the pectin.)
Before you start in on the actual jelly prep, I would highly recommend starting the sterilization process on the jars. The following recipe makes about 36 ounces of jelly; plan accordingly. Place open jars right side up in a stock pot and fill until the water is one inch above the lips of the jars. Place the lids in a separate pot and fill with water. Put both pots on to boil. They will take a while to reach boiling so go ahead and start with the jelly prep. The jars must be at a full boil for at least three minutes, so take note of when they start to boil. After they have boiled for three minutes, take them out of the water using a pair of tongs and place mouth down on paper towels laid out on the counter. After a few minutes (perhaps while boiling the jelly concoction) flip the jars over so that they can finish drying out and be ready to receive the jelly. Leave lids in the hot water. Leave both pots on the stove, turn the heat on the large stock pot down, but not completely off.
So here it is, the making of the prickly pear jelly:
Recipe:
2.5 cups of prickly pear juice
1 1&3/4 oz package pectin
3 Tbs lime juice
3.5 cups sugar
Also: Blender, cheese cloth, strainer.
First, make the fruit puree. Ignore whatever else you have read, because this is the easiest way to prepare it (if you don’t believe me, Google agrees).
Using leather gloves and a sharp knife, peel the skin from the prickly pear fruit. I found this very reminiscent of peeling a kiwi; a very spiny kiwi. (I recommend having a pair of tweezers present. The tiny spines ended up on my shirt and from their transferred to my elbow and forearm. Although my mom didn’t have that problem. Maybe I’m just less graceful.) The fruit should be a beautiful deep pink. Put it in a blender.
Once you have peeled all the fruit, puree it.
Bust out the cheese cloth, strainer and large bowl. Line the strainer with cheese cloth and place a bowl under the strainer. Pour the puree over the cheese cloth. To get all the juice from the pulp (there really is no way around this part) bundle the cheese cloth over the top of the puree, give a twist to seal and squeeze. Delight in getting the sticky juice all over your hands. Take a moment to ooo and ahh over the absolutely beautiful fuchsia color. I love it when cooking is this pretty.
Pour the juice into a measuring cup. Hopefully you have about 2.5 cups.
We had 1.75 cups.
So here is where we took a break to argue over fractions. This really should not have been difficult considering the number of degrees represented in the house, but I quickly abandoned the attempt to do it by hand and broke out the calculator on my smart phone. As my mom declared that we needed to multiply everything by 7/18, I declared, “.7″ and my dad said “7/18 isn’t .7.” This went on longer than I care to admit when I finally, exasperated, said, “You guys are not listening. All we have to do is divide 1.75 by 2.5 to get the conversion and it’s .7!” Sometimes what you really need to do is stamp your foot and throw a little tantrum.
Having agreed on the conversion, we got the rest of the ingredients together. I stared at giant measuring cup full of sugar and tried not to be a little aghast. I stuffed my objections to mounds of white sugar underneath the joy I got from making jelly from scratch. Cooking from scratch means actually facing up to what goes into the final product, a truth which can simultaneously be a luxury and an inconvenience. No preservatives or additives but, wow, that’s a whole lot of sugar. You catch my drift. But pure pleasure came from the simplicity of the ingredients: prickly pear fruit juice, pectin, lime juice, sugar.
The next steps mirrored the simplicity of the components:
In a saucepan, bring prickly pear fruit juice and pectin to a boil, stirring constantly. Again, admire the deep, rich hue and texture of the mixture, which should now be giving off a delicately sweet aroma.
Add lime juice and sugar, stir and bring to a hard boil (one that cannot be stirred down). Boil for three minutes. Be sure you have the mixture at a hard boil for three minutes so the jelly sets properly.
Pour or ladle jelly into awaiting glass jars. Seal.
Place sealed jelly jars into the large stock pot and turn the heat back up. Boil the jars for 10 minutes and then remove the jars from the heat. Sometime in the next 30 minutes you will hear the lids POP, which means jars are sealed and safe to store.
When the jars have cooled off enough, label them. Be creative…or at least give it your best shot.
Before I was ever born, my mom tasted a delectable combination: prickly pear jelly and brie. When living in Houston, my dad had a colleague who would arrive to staff potlucks bearing the delicious dish. With this in mind, my mom had picked up some brie from the grocery store that same day along with some strawberries. Looking at the strawberries and brie my mom commented, “If only we had some champagne.” My palate agreed with her lament. ”Oh, I wish you hadn’t said that. I would love some champagne.” She looked thoughtful for a moment and said, “You know, we actually might have some.” Sure enough, in the back of the beverage refrigerator she found a chilled bottle of champagne left over from some special occasion, possibly New Years. The cork gave a loud pop, and our evening was complete.
Warmed brie on crackers topped with prickly pear jelly complete with fresh strawberries and champagne to drink.
A client brought me close to tears this morning. Instead I just gaped, open mouthed and wide eyed. At least in my head that is what I did. A little piece of me called out in agony while I gave a fake little laugh on the outside and took the signed receipt. The time is 9:18 AM and I can say with confidence that these are my least favorite words of the day, the week and possibly the month:
“I can’t wait until this is all automated and I never have to touch a pen again.”
Blasphemy! I am saddened and disgusted at the same time. How can it be that this woman has forsaken the sheer joy of watching her thoughts appear before her in shiny wet ink? That small, unimposing tube of ink can turn a blank page into a document that will last for centuries, travel around the world, change a life, tell a hidden truth. There is limitless potential contained within that little pen, and here you are wishing them from your life.
Okay, so I know that you no longer need a pen to express your inner thoughts (clearly, I’m not blind to the fact that I am at this very moment expressing myself in writing without the help of a pen). The experience, though, is entirely different. Have you not ever stared blankly at the computer screen with no inspiration in sight and then picked up a pen to discover that you hold an entire world between your fingers?
I am still full of conflicting desires. I want to slap this woman silly. I want to give her a hug and tell her that everything will be okay. I want to run away screaming from the pent up expression she must contain within her. I want to pity her because maybe she’s just not that deep. I don’t think that everyone has to have a special love for writing, as I do. But c’mon…to wish away the ancient art of penmanship and the written word? To desire to see lost one of the most important developments in human history? Think about this: according to A History of Writing, by Steven Roger Fischer, the reed pen may have been used as early as 3000 BC to write on parchment! We have been using pens of some form or another to record our thoughts and experiences, our hopes and our dreams, our fears and our faith for millennia!
I am completely unwilling to entertain the idea that the keyboard is the next step and will replace the pen. Yes, word processing is a pretty nifty and handy tool. I can type faster than I can write and I still sometimes miss a thought before I can capture it using either means. I would far rather edit a document in Word than a handwritten essay. But I also know that the physical act of writing, of taking pen to paper, is far more cathartic than typing those words on a keyboard.
There is a deeply personal quality to words that are composed of letters shaped by the hand controlled by the brain that contains the mind that created the thought expressed by those words.
And with that I will step off of my soap box.
I feel like there is a definite theme arising in my blog updates over the last couple of months. I swear I do more than hike. I even write about it! I just don’t ever get around to editing and posting it. Somehow escaping the city into the embrace of the wilderness inspires me through the completion of thought I seek before hitting that little blue “Publish” button. Today’s hike was initially going to be another epic journey up Humphrey’s Peak. An attempt at the summit minus the gale force winds. Unfortunately, predicted thunderstorms as well as a road closure for a cancer walk put the kibosh on that idea. (Out of curiosity (and to check my spelling) I Googled the word, ‘kibosh‘ and discovered that no one is really quite sure what a kibosh actually is.)
With the day off, however, we were not going to be deterred from getting a much needed hit of nature. For several months I had been hearing about a gorgeous spot called Fossil Springs. We decided to give it a go. Immediately upon reaching the parking lot we were inundated with PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. The parking lot was bursting. Not a good sign. We headed down the nice wide trail, and went down down down until we hit the first spring.
The area is absolutely stunning except for one little hiccup. It was crawling with boy scouts. Here is where I will be completely honest in saying that we allowed ourselves to be deterred from continuing on by the droves of little people milling about. We made it just past the first spring to the first open pool and small waterfall, sat down and had a little lunch and then headed back out.
I do, however, wish that I had done my homework before the hike because we missed most of the good stuff because we simply did not know it was there to be seen. Perhaps if I had known that this
was ahead of us I would have been more eager to dodge the boy scouts in order to get there. But in order to get as far as we had come, we had already had to squeeze past three groups of 15 people, give or take. Their trail awareness was summed up by the girl running past in her cowboy boots and an entire group of teenage boys stopping at the cattle guard fence unsure of how to get past. The place echoed with shouts and calls and even as we perched on a group of rocks we thought were plenty out of the way to enjoy a break and a Cliff Bar, we had to scoot out of the way of a rowdy trio. Looking back, I think it likely our Bah-humbug got the better of us, being spoiled by hikes on which we would see at most one or two other people.
After completing the climb out, I was ready to say that I had seen enough of Fossil Springs. After a little further research, I would be willing to return to see more of the springs and waterfalls that lay further down the trail. On a weekday. During the school year.
