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Prickly Pear Cactus

 
Corissa Saint Laurent
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I’m currently living in central Texas among fields of prickly pear cactus. I’ve eaten cactus before (I think in a taco) and have had the juice in some juice blend but have never cooked it and certainly have never foraged it. Have you? Do you have any tips or recipes to share?
 
Ralph Sluder
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I have a large patch of them as well.  I do not eat the cactus, my beagle does though.
 I use the fruits to make wine every year.  Also makes a very nice jelly.
Use heavy gloves to avoid glochids, then I roll them around over the grill before handling. those little things can stay in your hands for weeks.
 
Anne Miller
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I have eaten the pads sliced and cooked like green beans which is what they taste like.  The slice and cooked pads were served with scrambled eggs.

Our daughter gathers the fruit in August to make jelly.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

 
Malek Beitinjan
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Ralph Sluder wrote:
Use heavy gloves to avoid glochids, then I roll them around over the grill before handling. those little things can stay in your hands for weeks.



I second this. Years ago I went and collected prickly pear fruits using only a dish towel since I had no gloves. The little spines stuck with me for a long time!

“There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.”
― G. K. Chesterton

 
Stacy Witscher
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The pads, nopales, make excellent salsa. There are many recipes online. I absolutely love them. At the markets in the Bay, they would cut off the prickles with a machete. Territorial Seeds sells a thornless variety, but they are currently sold out.

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We cook the (store-bought) pads on the grill. Amazingly good, particularly if you brush them with the oil from a jar of Chicago hot giardiniera.

You can also dice/slice and add them to any mixed veg dish.  Once cut, they are slimy almost like okra, though.

Weeds are just plants with enough surplus will to live to withstand normal levels of gardening!--Alexandra Petri

 
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