Cactus Apple lemonade

[Littles]

Cactus Apples or Prickly Pear are all over our little valley and most just go to waste!! This hurts my waste not want not heart. So the kids and I this time of year go and collect as much as we can and juice them. The juice is amazing as a pancake syrup, jelly and especially Limeade!

Don’t be intimidated by the thorns or pricklies (glochids). Carefully pluck fruit with tongs when ripe (usually dark red but some are more yellow just know your cactus). Place in a 5 gallon bucket and use a garden sprayer to wash most all of the thorns off. Just keep the water going full blast. They rub against each other and the thorns float off in the water. Pour out onto a screen or in a large strainer and give them one last good rinse. Juice with juicer, blender or steam juicer. Strain (the seeds will send you to a dentist real quick) and it’s ready for use.

Cactus Apple Limeade
1 1/2 cups Cactus Apple juice
3/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup sugar

Mix in quart jar and freeze for concentrate.

To make: add contents of jar to pitcher and add 2 quarts water and one quart ice. Stir and serve.

This is amazing!! And if you don’t add the water to dilute your concentrate it is great in mixed drinks!!

 

[aineo]

This reminds me of Native American “lemonade” made with sumac. It is abundant in many places in the US, but it just goes to waste. It is fairly easy to make a tart, lemonade-like drink with it, and it supposedly quite healthy.

 

[Littles]

This reminds me of Native American “lemonade” made with sumac. It is abundant in many places in the US, but it just goes to waste. It is fairly easy to make a tart, lemonade-like drink with it, and it supposedly quite healthy.

I might have to look that up? Do you by chance have a good recipe?

 

[aineo]

Because there are a few varieties of sumac, you will have to play around with it a bit. I loosely filled a gallon pitcher with sumac clusters that had been washed and crushed some, then left it in the refrigerator overnight. Then strain it with cheesecloth or another means, and add sugar or other sweetener to taste.

Be sure to use real sumac, not poison sumac (not related plants). Real sumac berries look like this: https://goo.gl/images/kK83Ea. Poison sumac berries look nothing like that.

 

[AmbassadorforChrist]

This reminds me of Native American “lemonade” made with sumac. It is abundant in many places in the US, but it just goes to waste. It is fairly easy to make a tart, lemonade-like drink with it, and it supposedly quite healthy.

I am very well acquainted with sumac, we always use to call it squawberry, although that was probably incorrect (and it would not be politically correct to say around customers anyway). With our business of tree service and brush removal, we see and remove it all the time. It makes a tasty little snack to just take a handful of berries and suck the sour off of them, I would imagine it would be very high in vitamin C and probably citric acid. I have never tried lemonade out of them though, I will have to give that a try at some point.