Jammin' with the family...

Ok, it isn't jam, it's jelly.

Last night we spent a few hours and made Prickly Pear Jelly. On Thursday we went out to the ranch and did a little offroading and decided to pick some of the ripe prickly pears. When they're ripe I'll occasionally pick one for a quick snack. I had always wanted to make it into jelly so we ended up filling a 3 gallon bucket with the ripe fruit. Making the jelly isn't a tough process it's just time and labor intensive. We found a few recipes on the net and hacked together our own from a few that sounded good.

First we took all the "tuna", as the fruit is called, and soaked them in the the sink with a 1/4 cup of bleach to clean them. After a 5 minute soak Shannon and Dakota scrubbed and cleaned them to remove dirt and spines. The spines are very small and one they get in your skin they are nearly impossible to get out so it's a delicate process. I cut them in half and threw them in the pot. Once that was done we had nearly a 16qt. pot full of fruit. We added water until we could just barely see the water under the fruit and put in on to cook down. We let them cook for about an hour stirring often. By the time we were done with that we had a nice deep magenta pot of juice.

Then began the fun. We strained the juice through cloth to remove seeds and any spines we missed. We took the strained juice added lemon juice, pectin(to help it gel), and sugar. We also added the secret ingredient, red hots. Yes, the candy. It adds a bit of kick to the jelly and gives it a nice all around taste.

Once everything had dissolved and cooked for a few minutes we poured it into another bowl to cool for 45 minutes. Once it's cooled for a while we scrapped the foam and gel off the top and poured into sterilized jelly jars. Sealed the jars and we were done.

The next morning after the jelly had cooled and set we tried some. It is delicious. Perfect for a PB&J or on a bagel with cream cheese. We made about 35 jars of jelly this way. They will make great Christmas gifts. I'll be keeping my eyes open for more ripe fruit when I'm out at the ranch so we can make more.

Here is the recipe we hacked together.

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3 3/4 cups of strained Prickly Pear juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
18 red hots
2 boxes of powdered pectin

Stir until it reaches a rolling boil. DO NOT let it foam. Once it reaches a boil add

6 cups sugar

Stir for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 45 minutes. Pour into sterilized jelly jars and seal.