How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 3

Be sure the see the first post (How to find and gather) and the second post (how to prepare the fruit and juice).

If you have not made jelly before, please do the safe thing and read up on specific canning methods, with up-to-date instructions before making this. The National Center for Home Food Preservation (linked from my sidebar) is a good place to go to start learning. If you have a dear one who knows how to can, call them and enlist their advice. Call your mom anyway, just for general principles.

Jelly is one of the easiest and safest home-canned foods you can make. I follow the instructions that come in the package of Sure-Jell, which is the brand of powdered pectin I usually use. For this batch I used Can-Jel, which is Kroger's brand, and it came out just fine. "Pectin" is a naturally occuring substance that causes fruit juice to gel when it is cooked with sugar. Apples, especially the peelings, have a great lot of it.

I always add extra pectin to my jellies and jams. I don't use liquid pectin, only the powdered type. However, my recipes all call for powdered pectin - be sure to use the type that your recipe calls for. It does make a difference!

Gather your jars, wash them and sterilize them with boiling water: either put the jars (jars only NOT the lids) in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes (use canning tongs to remove them), or run them through your dishwasher's "sterilize" cycle. I always sterilize one extra jar just in case I need it.

Set them on an old towel in a handy location so that you will be able to easily ladle the hot liquid jelly into them when the time comes. Right next to the stove works best for me, and is safest. You do not want to be carrying a pot full or even a jar-full of boiling liquid jelly. The towel under the jars is to catch spills.

The Prickly Pear Jelly recipe I use is very similar to recipes for elderberry jelly. It makes about 11 half-pints. Since this recipe calls for 2 boxes of pectin, you could half it but do not double it.
If you need more, make 2 batches. Use only sugar for this recipe - do not reduce the amount of sugar and do not use sugar substitutes.

Only make jelly when you can give it your full attention from start to finish. It won't take long for the actual cooking and putting up but you cannot leave it once you start. So get everything else done in advance, but make sure you have an hour of uninterrupted time and turn the phone off before you turn the stove on.

You will need:
6 cups of prepared Prickly Pear Juice
1/4 cup lemon juice (either fresh or bottled)
9 cups of sugar
2 boxes of powdered pectin
1/2 tsp of butter or margarine (to reduce foaming)

Put your jar lids (the seal part) into a sauce pan of water and heat to boiling. Turn the fire down and keep warm.

Measure the sugar into a large bowl and set aside.

Measure 6 cups of prepared juice into a large spaghetti pot and add 1/4 cup lemon juice. Add both packages of pectin and whisk or stir well. Add 1/2 tsp butter - this will help keep the foam down once the jelly starts boiling hard.

Cook on high heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.

While stirring, pour all of the sugar in all at once, and keep stirring over high heat until it comes back to a full rolling boil.

Don't take your eyes off it at this point.

Once it is at a full rolling boil, boil it hard for one full minute - this is important, use your timer if you can.

Turn the stove off and remove from hear and keep stirring until the boil dies down. If there is foam on the top, use a metal spoon to skim it off and discard it (I put it into a bowl and use it as my first taste after all the jars are sealed, but you shouldn't have much foam if you put the butter in).

Ladle the jelly into jars to within 1/8" from the top. When they are all filled, wipe off the rims with a wet cloth.

One at a time, get the lids out of the hot water with tongs and put lid and ring onto the jar. Tighten as tight as you can and set back down on a level surface away from drafts.


Repeat with all the jars, setting them close together so they will cool slowly. In about half an hour to an hour you should start hearing the sweet sound of lids popping as they seal.

Don't disturb them til the next day, then you can set them into a sink of clean water and finish getting the jelly off the outside, dry off and label. If they have sealed, they will keep for years.

If the seal didn't tighten they will still keep a long time, but you could either refrigerate those or process them in a boiling water bath if you want (per the recommendations of the NCHFP). Until recently -- oh sometime last week I'm sure -- we sealed jelly with paraffin wax and kept it until we used it up!

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 2

The first post told how to find and gather the ripe prickly pears. You might want to refer back to it if you just arrived. This post is part 2: making the juice. Part 3 will explain how to make the jelly.

Preparing the prickly pears: I always singe (pronounced "sinj") the pears before I do anything with them. This helps assure that all those spines are gone. If you have a gas stove, you can do this over a burner. Otherwise, rev up the grill and do it there. You need flames to burn off the spines.

Hold each pear by tongs or a long fork and hold especially the blossom end into the fire, until it stops sparking, then turn and flame the other side, until all sides and top and bottom have been singed. Don't worry about overdoing it - for some reason the skins just never char, so you can keep them in the fire quite a long time if necessary. Set aside into a bowl and flame the next one until all are done.

Next, get a cutting board, sharp knife, your gloves, and tongs or a fork.

They can be eaten raw and you might like the flavor. To eat them that way, singe them and cut off the ends. Using a paring knife, hold the pear with a fork and cut away the peeling and discard. Then, cut the peeled pear in half and, with a spoon, scoop out the seeds - they are
hard and inedible. What is left is tasty raw fruit! You could prepare them this way, then candy them if you like, but I always make jelly.

To make juice so you can make jelly, there is no need to peel them nor to remove the seeds. Just cut the pear into 2 or 3 pieces and drop into a large cooking pot.

When they are all in the pot, add water until the pears are completely covered and an inch or two under water, depending on how many pears you have and how strong you want your juice.

Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for about half an hour. This will give you the juice for your jelly. Strain it into a pot or pitcher, and discard the pulp of the pears (which will have lost their color into the water).

If you need more juice, and there is still a lot of color in the pears, you can add a little more fresh water to them and simmer again to get the last of the flavor from them. (The photo above shows the pears before they have been cooked. The juice is a much richer magenta color after cooking).

You can either make jelly right away or freeze the juice to use later.

Monday's post will have the jelly recipe.

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 1

One of my favorite things to make for Christmas gifts for many years was Prickly Pear Jelly. Devin asked me last year to make some, and Alvina mentioned it last week, so it is in my mind to make some this year. This article will be done in several parts, to cover the process from start to finish: from collecting the ripe prickly pears to beautiful jars of jelly.

The first part is finding the pears (or "tuna" as they are called in Spanish). I usually keep my eyes open throughout the year for sizeable prickly pear patches along county roads or waste places that might be ok to gather in. You can also ask friends with acreage if they have prickly pear cactus on their land, and if they would let you gather some.

We can't pick anything in State Parks or along state highways, but there's no need, really, because in the southwest, even up into Oklahoma, cactus is pretty common.

Once you have located a likely patch, keep your eyes open. Starting in late August or early September, the pears will begin ripening. You know they are ripe when they turn reddish purple. They ripen over time, with different plants turning red at different times Even in the same patch, some fruits will be ripe while others are still green. They will last a long time on the plant if they are not eaten by animals, so you have a little leeway, usually, to gather them.

CAUTION: THEY HAVE THORNS AND HORRIBLE LITTLE HAIR-LIKE SPINES on them, even on the pears!!!! I use a set of tongs to pull them so that I do not have to touch them at all - those little hair spines can get into gloves and are bad news!

I just grasp each ripe pear firmly with the tongs and twist and pull. They come right off. The riper the pear, the easier it will come loose. If your tongs are not strong, you can use them to hold the pear and a long knife to cut them at the base. Either way works fine. Just stay on strong footing and don't even think about trying to get pears from the middle of the patch. Leave those, and only collect the ones you can reach without reaching!!!

Drop them into a heavy paper sack (paper so the spines won't come thru and so you can throw it away when done. Do not reuse the bag as it will have invisible spines in it.

They will keep like this for several days until you are ready to use them. No need to refrigerate at this point.

Tomorrow's post will tell how to prepare them for eating and how to make juice for the jelly.  The third post tells how to make the jelly itself.

The Kind of September

Many local wild plants are putting on berries right now. The first two photos show briars andthe third is a wild annual I haven't id'ed yet. You cannot eat either of them! Edible berries ripening now will be in a separate post (Safe Food Handling, you know). Others are blooming for their final hoorah.

The butterflies are going nuts! They will not sit still for a minute, so no pics of them. I saw a little orange one the other day chasing a larger green insect - maybe a grasshopper or a dragonfly - it looked like a sparrow chasing a hawk! The butterfly chased the larger creature into a tree, then turned around and flew back the way it came. It was a sight to see!


A couple of years ago, at Nick's, during the season when his Live Oak tree was blooming, we saw another episode of butterfly behavior. The tree was filled with bees and with butterflies. Not sure what kind of bees but I assume they were honeybees. The butterflies looked a lot like the Hackberry Emperors that come to fruit and melon rinds.

Anyway, the tree was so full of both of these that it was humming. And here's the thing: the butterflies were battling with the bees, but the bees weren't stinging. The butterflies were wrestling with the bees: jumping on them and knocking them out of the tree and wrestling
with them on the ground. The bees, on the other hand, were docile and just trying to get back up to the blossoms. It was the most unusual thing. Have you ever heard of such?


Don't forget that now is the time to plant bulbs and fruit trees! I ordered hyacinth, saffron crocus and grape hyacynth bulbs. I planted bulbs last year for the first time and OH MY! They are the best thing since sliced bread. They are easy: just dig a hole and put them in. You can even put different kinds in the same hole, at different depths.

Then in the dreary depths of winter, happy green leaves pop up, followed by flowers that last a long long time. The fragrance of the hyacinths in a vase fills the whole room. It's better than a room full of roses!

Obligatory Cat Post ... and Cat Lore!

This cat in our yard is not our cat. She/he/it belongs to the neighbors but loves to hang out in our yard. She makes us smile to see her.

We are between cats at the moment. when Baby died, we decided against getting another for a while. It's now been the longest either of us has ever gone without a pet. Thanks I'm sure in part to this cat and other animals in town, we still don't feel the need for another yet.

That day will come, but for now it is nice to not have to worry about who will feed the cat and such. Baby really spoiled us, because, even though she was a mostly-in-the-house cat, she got to a point where she only "went" out of doors, so we did not have to keep a litter box! Oh that was wonderful! My expectations for cat behavior will now forever include "asking to go out"!

I learned recently that cats can be used to predict the weather. Other than that when they are wet it is raining, I mean. Heh.

"When a cat washes her face over the ear, tis a sign the weather will be fine and clear." The other indicator in the same vein is if, when you pet the cat, it raises a lot of static. Both of these are because the humidity is low. The drier the air, the more static electricity cat fur will generate. The cat is licking itself to get a bit of moisture into its fur and stop those annoying little flashes of static. Cats groom themselves daily, but this proverb relates to increased grooming, specifically about the face and head.

That one makes so much sense to me. Baby was a long haired cat, and when we lived in West Texas, where it is always dry, her poor fur was always tangled and matted. No matter what we did, or how much we brushed her, her fur was always a mess. But when we moved to the coast, her fur became silky and soft and untangled. As if by magic, we didn't even have to brush her, she was able to attend to her own grooming. The constant humidity gave her a beautiful well-kept coat.

The second bit of lore, you will have to test for yourself. Not having our own cat, we can't observe for ourselves. It is this: you know those times when suddenly, for no reason at all and at a truly random time like the middle of the night, your cat leaps up and dashes madly around the house and over the furniture and skids around corners and leaps and bounds and whizzes around for 3 or 4 minutes and then just as suddenly stops and goes on about her business? When the cat becomes loud and boistrous and carries on - again for no reason?

Well, they say that indicates a storm is brewing. So next time this happens, watch and see if you don't get some kind of bad weather in the next, say, 24 hours or so!

My family was not generally very superstitious. But there were a few superstitions that people held to, and I will mention them from time to time. The old idea that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck was strongly believed. Nandy wrote that when his family moved from
Cornish Ok to West Mountain Tx (near Gilmer) in their covered wagon in 1921, a black cat walked across the road ahead of them. His "Papa" pulled the wagon to the side and waited. He said he would not move until someone else had crossed that spot before him. They ended up
camping there overnight. The photo of the man in overalls is Papa, with Little Grandmother and Auntie Rose, one of Nandy's sisters. Notice how pale her hair was? Nandy was towheaded as a little child too. It was only later his hair turned black.

And as late as when I was a child, Big Grandmother, Mema's mom, turned her car around one day and went around the block to avoid crossing the path of a black cat. The photo with the seashore backdrop is of Big Grandmother and Big Grandaddy and Mema.

Most superstitions that I heard about were considered jokes, and they told them to children as a way of teasing us. But the lore of the black cats was strong and the old folks weren't taking chances! Of course, later on we had a black cat as a pet and I think that dispelled the last of that old belief. :-)

Find the Leaf that Moves

This katydid sat still and let me take his picture from several angles.




His leaf camoflage is pretty good, even tho he is sitting on heart shaped leaves of this wild morning glory.

Today's post is short, lots of work this week. But I gathered Prickly Pears the other day and plan to make jelly from them and post about that later in the week. :-)

The Fact of Miracles

God created the Laws of Nature when He created the universe.
He created all our science: He created algebra and geography,
He created physics and the physical,
He created the science of chemistry and true love.


As the Creator of our science, it should not be surprising when God uses the nature He created in the miracles He gives us. Those who think that miracles do not exist or aren’t scientific just don’t know enough science.

It’s a red herring to point to a natural event like a storm as “proof” that it wasn’t a miracle: the miracle is in the storm and in the timing and in the ultimate good results.

Job 26:14 (New International Version)

“And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”


* I originally posted this last year in another place. Seemed a nice time to use it again. :-) Paul took the photo of the waterspout at Magnolia Beach, Calhoun County, Texas in 2006 0r 2007.