Prickly Pear Jelly!

We've been trying to decide whether or not to make Prickly Pear Jelly again this year.  We tried it last year, and it was a lot of work, and it made the house stink for a week.  Prickly pears cooking is not a pleasant smell, that's for sure.  And the wild prickly pears in Gallup are pretty small, so last year we had to pick (and de-prickle) about a jillion of those babies.

We had just about given up on the idea when we happened upon some really big prickly pears while we were on a walk to the cemetery in Albuquerque from our hotel room when we went to the balloon festival last week.  We decided right then and there that we would make the jelly after all.  With the big fruit (called tunas), and the lessons we learned last year, it wound up not being bad at all.  The jelly tastes much better this year, too.  Last year we made the juice much to thick.  This year, it is thinner and tastier.

It was dark when we were walking back to the hotel, and we went through a Community Center parking lot.  We spotted several plants with big fruit, so we decided to scrounge around to see what we could find to pick and carry the fruit.  Dad found an old dilapidated box.  We held it together and put the fruit in it, but not until after Dad ripped off the flaps of the box to make fruit pickers.  They actually worked much better than the tongs we used last year.

The tunas were a little bigger than golf balls.  The ones we gathered last year were probably about a third of the size.

This picture is out of order, and apparently it doesn't want to move.  After we got home, Dad set up the chile roasting set-up and scorched the thousands of pricklies off of each tuna.



I should have turned the picture before I added it.  I guess it's too late now.  When we got back to the car, we dumped the tunas in the cooler that lives in the trunk.
 

We cooked the pulp down outside.  Last year, it stunk the house up for a week.  Then we didn't want to eat the jelly until the memory of the stink was gone--that took months.

A couple of days later, we turned the juice into jelly. 

We got about 16 half-pints out of our adventure.

I always feel so virtuous after I've finished a canning project--sort of in touch with the pioneer within.



The final step--tasting.   It's pretty doggone good.  It's still pretty thin.  Often jelly doesn't set up for a couple of weeks.  If it sets up then we'll have delicious prickly pear jelly.  If not, we'll have delicious prickly pear syrup!