At least I brought something home...

[Old Ironsights]

So, Saturday I was out trying to scare up a few rabbits and having a miserable time of it when I ran across a patch of Opuntia that hadn't been browsed yet...

Unfortunately, most of the good stuff was overripe and drying out.

No matter, it makes the prettiest purple infusion you could want when soaked in vodka for a bit.



Oh yeah... most folks call them "Prickly Pears"...

[ollogger]

So is there any medical use in the cactus, or is it that it makes a pretty cocktail?


ollogger

[Old Ironsights]

It's pretty much one of those "totally edible" plants.

The fruit is tasty, the paddles can be too (if properly prepared), the seeds make a relatively decent adjunct to any milled seed flour (say, mixed with Flax seed).

As far as medicinal?

Lotsa vitamins in that colorful/flavorful vodka...

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/ho ... kly_pears/

http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Prickly-Pear-Cactus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia

Fortunately it grows all over here. The only competition for the fruit is the deer.

[Bill in Oregon]

I like a man who gets his vitamins with his booze ...

[Blaine]

Any votes for EverClear, and BlackBerries?

[J35]

It make's fine Jelly, pancake syrup, and wine, and excellent TARGETS, in S AZ patches of Prickly pear can be a 1/4 mile or more, can't hardly wade thru them in the day-time and at night you are screwed.

Also make a good trail snack and thirst quencher in season, lots of them are the size of lemon.

Have fun-- J

[Sixgun]

Man! You guys have lots of neat stuff out west. Interesting. I learn something new everyday.

My buddy just came back froma pheasant hunt in S. Dakota and said "weed" was growing everywhere. He said the buds were big and juicy and wanted to take home a bag of it but figured the airline people would frown a bit. The story goes that the military used to grow it for rope during WW2.-----Sixgun

[Ji in Hawaii]

We call them "panini" and the fruit we make into jam, wine, and also eat fresh but wear gloves when picking or better yet carry a little butane torch to burn off the tiny spikes before picking. We'll parboil the young paddles and slice up, and toss with sliced oinions and tomato to make a salad. Slimy-licious! Our Axis Deer love panini fruit and paddles so when fruiting a good place to hunt deer. We have both red, and yellow fruit varieties.

[J35]

For Jelly, syrup or wine we used salad tongs to fill five gallon buckets and then used this http://www.juicer-steamer.com/10litmehstea.html to extract the juice, works really well, no stickers or straining.

For a snack or treat out in the hills I cut a small mesquite branch about the size of a pencil and split one end about a inch down then pinch it back together and sharpen a point then spread it and insert a small pebble or chip of wood to hold it open to make a fork and use it to spear a fruit and break off from plant and then wipe the fruit in some grass or weeds to remove most of the little nasty stickers then peel and eat.

For the good times-- J

[Charles]

Ji...That thing is called "prickly pear cactus" in Texas and the fruit is red and not yellow. Folks make jam and jelly with the "cactus apple" and when the spines are burned off the cattle eat the pods. You can tell times are bad in Texas when ranchers starte burning pear for the live stock to eat. You have to be careful as rattle snakes are likely to come scooting out when the pear burner gets lit. I have fried a few rattlers with the pear burner.

Mexicans call that stuff "nopal" and eat the pods. You can even buy them sliced in local Mexican markets down here. Not bad eating either.