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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.
Oh but how I wish I could describe the luscious aroma drifting through the house. Twenty minutes ago I poured a runny concoction of eggs, milk and cheese over a mess of wilted spinach, basil and tomato set in a crumbly layer of butter and flour. Twenty minutes from now I will have a delicate quiche. Right now my creation is at that point where it begins to smell absolutely incredible, hinting at the pleasure to come.
My mouth is watering.
This is my first quiche in over 6 months and now I wonder how I waited so long? Somehow it slipped my mind how incredibly easy and undeniably delish quiche truly is.
The hardest part of the whole process was climbing up on top of the counter with hands caked from crust making to retrieve my new rolling pin of choice: A bottle of Pinot Grigio. Roll your eyes all you kitchen snobs, but it’s far classier than my last rolling pin: A bottle of vodka. Though there are some people who would argue that last part, since it was a bottle of GreyGoose Vodka versus an $8 bottle of white wine.
So the true motivation behind this post was my dear sister, Janice’s request for a quiche recipe. In answer to your inquiries, I have a great recipe, that earns the title “great” in several ways. First of all, it’s versatile, proven so as I’ve made spinach and broccoli, barbeque chicken and pizza quiche all from the same base recipe (and tonight I add tomato, spinach and basil to that list). Second, it’s easy as…well…easy as pie! And here’s the kicker and answer to your query, it is crustless. Or CAN be crustless. I never make it so, because doing so would be to cheat myself out of an excuse to make and eat shortbread crust, both of which I love dearly.
Without any further ado, here it is:
If you prefer a crust:
One recipe basic pie dough
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
3 Tbl water
You know what to do…and if you don’t, I recommend looking it up for best results.
Filling:
2 cups broccoli, chopped
2 cups spinach, shredded
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
butter to saute
(Or whatever type of quiche you want!)
4 extra large egg whites (or one egg short of a cup of egg whites)
3 extra large eggs
1 cup shredded Italian blend cheese (or mozzarella)
1 1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp Dijon or yellow mustard
1 Tbl grated parmesan or italian blend cheese (save for top)
Preheat oven to 350
Saute the broccoli and spinach with the butter and garlic until bright green and aromatic. (Or whatever ingredients you have chosen)
Mix all other ingredients (minus the 1 Tbs cheese) together with a whisk. Whisk away until frothy for a lighter quiche.
Place broccoli and spinach (or tomato, or chicken, or pineapple…) in the crust. Pour in egg mixture. Cheese has a tendency to come out at the end so take a fork and distribute it evenly through the quiche. Sprinkle the 1 Tbs cheese on the top.
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.
Like I said, easy as pie!
And lo and behold, my timing is perfect because I just took the final product out of the oven and it is now taking a few moments to set before I partake of that first coveted slice
.
Food blogging is one of the marvels of modern times. I am an amateur foodie. A wanna be foodie. Or maybe I am a closet foodie who is just waiting for the time and place to come out. The fact of the matter is that I love food: picking ingredients, preparing ingredients and then putting everything together to create an aromatic symphony that tantalizes the taste buds. I really am not that great of a cook, but I like to fancy myself someday being able to wear a chef’s hat and apron without looking too pretentious. Okay, so a chef’s hat looks pretty pretentious even on a chef – after all, isn’t that kind of the point? Anyway, back to food blogging and how it is absolutely revolutionizing my food experience. The most obvious advantage is the sheer number of recipes that are now available online, complete with taste tests and tips and detailed instructions on what to expect and how to avoid the pit falls. Food blogs come in all sorts of flavors, some focusing on breads or Mexican dishes or noodles or vegetables or chocolate, while others represent the reality of most modern kitchens, sharing an eclectic mix of recipes from the every day to the gourmet. Whatever you are looking for, I can almost guarantee that you will find multiple recipes with different spins and tricks to get that taste you crave. Besides, having three or four or ten recipes at your fingertips gives you an idea of the basic ingredients and proportions and ideas on how to create variations based on what just happens to be in season (or in the fridge in my case). Most cookbooks will have one recipe for one dish and learning by yourself how to modify can be a lengthy process. Now, with the help of an entire community, you have a head start.
I won’t lie. I love cookbooks. I especially love a cookbook that is so loved that it lies flat on all my favorite recipes and has pages splattered with cooking oil or cake batter. You know, the books that have been through the battle of the rogue hand blender or exploding pyrex dish and have witnessed victory. If I could I would carry my cookbooks all over the world with me, but the truth is that my scuba gear gets top priority and my clothing second. Moving from mainland to island to island, I just had to give up the luxury of having my collection on hand. Here-in lies another beauty of the food blog network – even though I cannot carry a library with me, I can still access a diverse array of wonderful recipes. My favorite spot to begin any search or just to browse is tastespotting.com. Take a look, I know you will love it! Here are noteworthy recipes that have been taken from the thousands of food blogs out there and I have to tell you, I have never been disappointed by one of their recommendations! Merely flip through and click on a dish that looks interesting. It should link you to a blog that includes the recipe. Take your time and have a look around at other recipes on the site. You may just find a hidden treasure in those entries.
A huge part of food for me is the community and culture behind it. I have a highly associative relationship with food, both cooking and eating it. Tomato soup will always comfort me because it reminds me of dinners alone with my mom (even if it was only Campbell’s tomato soup). On nights when it was just the two of us, she would often pop open a can, add a bit of milk and we would sit down with our soup and a stack of Ritz crackers and talk about nothing imparticular. Even though I no longer eat beef, the smell of barbeque beef ribs take me back to summer time in Arizona when we would spend all day in the pool, my sisters and I putting on water shows and hosting diving competitions, until it was time to jump out, dry off and sit down for an outside feast. Salad and corn on the cob and barbeque ribs; our smiles shining in faces covered with sauce. I could go on for countless pages about different dishes and what they mean to me. Doubtless more of those associations will come out, which brings me to the point. Food blogs are a fantastic way to celebrate the culture and meaning surrounding the food that we eat. Recipes are only part most posts with the story behind the recipe a huge part of what the author wants to share. We do not love food only for its taste but for the way that it makes us feel, bringing together the family or celebrating the coming of summer or warming us up on a cold night. Today I came across the blog of an Israeli woman who was cooking all her mothers recipes and sharing them with the world. How wonderful to give such a treasure to the rest of us simply to share the passion for this food; not just the recipes but also her thoughts and memories that go along with it. These blogs are a sort of community, a way to share our experiences, whether we are cooking for one or for many.
