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Prickly Pears

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When I stopped at a Mexican market to find a molinillo for the history of chocolate class I'll be teaching later this trimester, I - not surprisingly - wandered excitedly through the produce section before heading to the checkout stand.

I found loroco flowers, fresh peppers in every color of the rainbow, but the only thing I grabbed today were prickly pears. I've been curious about them and finally decided to give them a try.

These were already "de-spined", but I was still clueless as to how to prepare them. Thankfully I found this useful tutorial: how to cut and prepare prickly pears from simplyrecipes.com.

 

The seeds are vaguely like gravel. Teeth-breaking little buggers. And the fruit itself was very tart. Having never bought prickly pear before, maybe I didn't pick the ripe ones. I peeled, scooped, and chopped and ended up with very little prickly pear. Oh, well. Next time I'll buy more.

Then I turned these lovelies into jam. Recipe and photos to follow. Yum!
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