Something different —Prickly pear jelly!

A little specialty of mine, made from the plains prickly pear that grows wild here in Colorado.

1 quart prickly pear juice*
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup lime or lemon juice (I prefer lime)
1 package LOW SUGAR pectin.

Mix pectin with a half cup of sugar. Pour juices and pectin mixture into a large sauce pan and bring to a full boil, stirring constantly. Add remaining sugar, and bring to rolling boil again for about a minute. Remove from heat, ladle into prepared canning jars, and process in a water bath for 10 minutes. Makes seven 8-oz jars.

*Prickly pears should be scrubbed and rinsed to remove the fine spines. Wear an apron and heavy duty kitchen gloves while you do this! The juice can be obtained in one of two ways. If you are using large, fleshy prickly pears, like the commercially grown ones, you can simply run them through a food mill. If you are using wild prickly pears, which tend to be more seeds and less pulp, or if you don’t have a food mill, halve or quarter them and place them in a saucepan with not quite enough water to cover. Cook them down over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes, smash them well with a potato masher, then pour it all out into a colander that’s been lined with a few layers of cheese cloth and placed over a bowl to catch all the liquid. Let it drain well, and give it a squeeze when it’s cool enough to touch to get as much liquid out as possible.

If you don’t want to go right into making jelly, the juice can be frozen for later use.