While the kiddos got to help pick the prickly pears the next steps were a bit too tricky to include them although they did gather wood for the fire. Due to the cactus spines on the prickly pear care must be taken to remove them. The best way seems to be by burning them off in flames. Eddy and Pa did the man work of roasting the prickly pears while the typical women's work of skinning and chopping them fell to Nona, Ashlee, and I.
Eddy preps the prickly pears while Pa checks for quality control
Eddy roasting them
While no part of the prickly pear process is hard, skinning and chopping them is a bit tedious. Even though the spiney parts have been burned off you are never quite sure and if you're poked it can hurt for up to a week so we decided to play it safe and touch them only with the tongs until we got the skin off.
Ashlee carefully skinning and chopping a prickly pear
Zany loves to be involved in typical woman's work but she could only watch
We skinned and chopped quite a bit for jam but we still had so many left we decided to make a prickly pear marinade. Since it was going to be a marinade we decided that the smokiness from roasting would be an asset and so we just threw them in the pot whole to boil. I wouldn't recommend that for jelly because it would impart a smoky taste.
Ash mashing the prickly pears
After boiling it for about forty five minutes we strained it through cheesecloth (don't tell Martha Stewart but it was really cheap washcloths we used since we couldn't find cheesecloth at the store) then we poured it in the bottle and put on the lids. It should keep in the fridge for about six months according to the recipe.
Prickly pear marinade anyone?
I had a nice pork loin roast that I poured this prickly pear marinade over in the crock pot and let it cook all day in the sauce. Oh boy, was it good! I was unsure how it would be but it was smoky, spicy and sweet just the thing for a pork roast. You ought make some, prickly pears are free for the taking around these parts!
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