I'm Carolyn Washburn with Utah State
University Extension. I'm the family
consumer science agent. And today we're
going to be talking about something that
you could use as a shampoo, a hair
conditioner, a red dye, and it can even
be made into flour.
We're talking about one of our drought
resistant native plants, that of the
prickly pear cactus.
We're right here in a midst of them,
this is a pretty hardy bunch of cactus
plants.
They're actually green, growing all year
long. They don't have a season, except
for the fruit.
But this plant is both a vegetable and
a fruit.
The vegetable being the green pods,
called the nopales.
And they are eatable all year long, and
then there is the pear, the fruit.
That comes during the early part of the
summer and is great to use for a number
of things.
Very eatable, has great nutrition, some
good vitamins in.
And it has been used for a long time
by native people living here.
So, we'll go back into the kitchen and
show you some things you can do with
this great prickly pear cactus plant.
Well we're back in extension kitchen now
having already gotten our nopales and our
fruit from our prickly pear cactus.
We're going to go ahead and
prepare a quick little seasonal salad
that is fresh, full of a lot of nutrients,
and I think you'll find it surprisingly
very pleasant.
So I have my nopales, I have my pods
right here. I can purchase these at
several of the stores.
If I do purchase my pods this way I need
to make sure that I'm going to go ahead
and peel the pods first and I have my
little tweezers just in case, because they
do have the prickly pines in them.
In case you decide to get your own
nopale pods, you'll want to make sure
you've got some good little cutters and
some very good gloves.
You're going to need those.
And then of course your tweezers in
case you still get some stickers in.
If you decide not to do that, you can
purchase the pods.
Some of them you can purchase in stores,
are already going to be scraped and
the little stickers taken out of them.
And that's certainly a great way to
purchase them.
And this you can get in most supermarkets
and especially in the Latino markets
if you shop there.
So the pods, or the nopales, as they are
called by our Hispanic population, are
what we are going to use for the main
ingredient in our salad.
And we simply just go ahead and slice this
And chop it up for the salad. As I slice
it let me show you that inside, we know
that cactuses are about 90% water,
and maybe you used to hear that you could
drink the juice out of a cactus to
stay alive. And you have a pretty
difficult time.
It does have a lot of water, it has some
fluid in it that is a little slimy.
And so before I use it in a salad, I would
rinse it just to get rid of that.
So I'm going to go ahead and cut that up.
Rinse it, and then I'm going to go ahead
and put some chopped in the salad
bowl ready to go.
So I have my chopped nopales in the
bottom of my salad bowl.
I'm going to go ahead and put my jicama,
chopped jicama is simply wonderful a
great vegetable to get your children using.
You can dip it in a sauce, you can
eat it raw, and it's certainly good in
this full salad.
Then I'm going to go ahead and put in
some peeled, sliced up, orange segments.
It gives it some great little color and
very tasty.
Then I'm ready to just put in a little
bit of seasoning.
I'm going to take some red wine vinegar,
and ingredients are listed so you'll be
able to find out exactly how much.
A little tiny pinch of red pepper, dried
red pepper. And then I simply just
mix that together fairly well.
Then I'm going to go ahead and pour that
over my little salad.
I'm going to add my chopped cilantro
because you have to have a little chopped
cilantro with a Latino salad like this.
So I'm going to add that.
And a little bit of dry, roasted cumin.
You can buy it dry roasted or you can just
try roasting it yourself.
I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of that
in.
I'm going to add a pinch of salt.
Simply mix that together.
Put some out on a plate.
And then because I have a lot of
vegetables, here, with the vegetables
being the nopale and also the jicama.
I do have a little bit of fruit, citrus
fruit in my orange, but I'm going to go
ahead and I'm simply going to add a
little bit of the fruit out of the prickly
pear.
Now the fruit is called the pear.
That's what it really is, that's where the
name comes from.
The prickly pear cactus. You can see the
dark red color of it.
It's often used for a dye.
Many of our residents in the county go
ahead and mash this out, squeeze it,
and juice it making a wonderful prickly
pear red jelly that it is clear and
delightful. They'll make prickly pear
candy that has a distinct flavor.
This tastes a little bit like a maybe a
watermelon, I would compare it to.
But it certainly gives a beautiful color
on the top of my salad.
Now does it have seeds in it, it does.
But those seeds are absolutely
eatable.
Our native ancestors used to dry those
seeds and then grind them into a flour.
So the prickly pear cactus was also used
as a flour.
And there you have a very simple,
delightful salad that's made out of your
prickly pear cactus.`