This video gives the shortest answer to the “how do I choose nopales at the store?” question.
You can also learn how to slice them from this video…
Most cactus varieties have spines that will cause some harm if you are not careful.
This video shows how to clean those type pads off with a knife.
I’ve been out in cactus fields and seen the ladies from Mexico, with a child strapped to their back in a shawl… with a huge butcher knife in hand, cutting and cleaning cactus leaves with a dexterity that is astounding.
Our most popular variety the Nopalea grande is nearly spineless…. one need not do all the work seen here.
Jul 03
Recipe for a “nopalitos” salad, as show on the show Let’s Cook Together, on 3ABN in 2006
I use about the same recipe myself…. I use a lot of onion, some garlic, and more cilantro, some cumen, and corn and cooked black beans also. I don’t use lemon since our cactus already has a lemony tang to it.
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The folks in this video harvest the same type cactus we do… Nopalea grande. We also use similar thick rubbery gloves. Leather gloves are not what to use.
We put ours into five gallon buckets also, to take them to the packing shed…. but our buckets are clean.
Here’s a fellow with a good video on how to peel and use a cactus fruit.
I’d mention that leather gloves aren’t really that good to use for cactus… the glochids will get stuck in the leather, and in time you’ll get stuck anytime you use the gloves, and spines will drop off them onto any surface you set them on. Better is to use the thickest rubber gloves you can find. If they are thick enough, you’ll get no spines at all.
And never EVER use your wife’s dish towels to hold the cactus…. the spines will get in it and she’ll make you dry the dishes from that point on!
I hold the fruit with a fork to peel it.
Due to the spine issue, we don’t sell our fruits to the general public.
If a commercial enterprise wants our cactus, they can e-mail us…
We sell the fruits in five gallon buckets with a rubber gasket and easy-strip lid….
and inside a cardboard box….
While we spray the fruits down a few days before harvest to remove the majority of the spines and dust… we don’t wash them after removal from the plant. It is better to do the final cleaning at the store they are to be sold in.
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Melissa’s Fresh Produce Tips
With a good video also about how to clean a cactus fruit (Prickly Pear).
Jul 03
- Shell and El eating cactus
A long-time customer sent a photo of their tortoises eating the cactus they get from us.
We grow our cactus for humans, but if you share it with your tortoises, iguanas, bearded-dragons or exotic parrots, that’s fine with us. It’s much better for them than sharing your iceburg lettuce which really has no nutrients.
Here’s what Avis had to say about the reaction of the torts to our cactus….
” My tortoises are long time loyal fans of your cactus.
Attached are two pictures of Shell and El, chowing down on some yummy opuntia.
The torts and I would be delighted if you used their pictures.
Use it on the blog also.
Tortoises, at least Shell and El love this cactus and they take it out of each other’s mouth if necessary.
Thanks for growing great cactus.”
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Thank you Avis for being a great customer for these years.
Right now our Grade C cactus is very good.
They are sizable, but still tender and succulent…. this is why it is called Nopalea grande, it means ‘Big Cactus’. These leaves can retain their freshness and tenderness sometimes to a large size. It makes for easy cleaning and higher efficiency in the kitchen. If you’ll be chopping the cactus, this is the best stage to get it at. The leaves are easier to clean on a per-pound basis. The smaller leaves of Grade B and Grade A (six to eight inches) will each take nearly as much time to clean as one big foot long leaf. The cleaning time for each might be twenty seconds once one has done a few.
Here is a photo of two fifty pound boxes we sent out yesterday. The boxes are sixteen inches square and thick wall cardboard boxes. We like the surety we get from superior packaging materials. We don’t want the box to fall apart en-route to you… that’s a lot of weight of cactus pressing on the boxes.
Grade C, Nopalea grande cactus leaves
Harley Davidson Motorcycle Company has been around since 1907.
History has been made with Harleys. They accompanied our soldiers on war… our Police use them to maintain order… and Bikers use them to have fun and get around.
They can be clanky smoke belching monsters that rattle the teeth out of their rider’s heads…. and they can lead to a big smile while riding… a smile that will surely leave bugs in the rider’s teeth, if he still had any.
A Harley is the closest thing to a horse you can find…. but it goes faster.
There’s nothing like the wind running past you as you scream up a mountain pass…. coming over the saddle you can see the great expanse of landscape God gave us…. the horizon opening as the doors of the hills fly by your tearing eyes…. even the Central Valley is a beautiful sight to see from the seat of a Harley.
Our town is made up of the children of the Dust Bowl and the original ranchers that raised cattle for the Spanish Crown. Our local teams sport names reminiscent of the Olde West… names such as ‘Cowboys’. Half of the buildings in the ‘Olde Towne Nipomo’ are ‘false-front’ buildings… favored in the old west days to make the town seem bigger, more settled and prosperous from the main street.
We like our horses in this town… we’re cowboys and ranchers in this town… our local bar has ‘Saloon’ in the name…. and we ride Harleys because they won’t let us take horses onto the Highway anymore.
Nipomo is a good town for sure. But I fit in just fine with Cowboys, Rednecks and Bikers….
I was going past the Saloon the other day, and saw that ‘Dusty’ had his newly restored 1931 Harley Davidson ‘Knucklehead’ in his truck. I just had to take a photo.
Some fellow told Dusty he ought to charge me ten dollars. Then some chick came out and said she’d take her clothes off and pose nude on it for twenty dollars more…. but this is a family website…. and Vickie’d not let me alone in town if I came back with pictures like that.
1931 Harley Davidson knucklehead
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Going through old motorcycle photos, I found another nice one that I saw recently….
The fellow who put this motorcycle together is an actor…. he makes an occasional appearance on ‘Sons of Anarchy’. I met him on the set of ‘Sympathy for Delicious’. He’s got a really nice ride….
A nice ride.
Jul 02
Letha Hadady, author of FEED YOUR TIGER:
”If you have diabetes or are at risk, there are several supplements that are easy to use and find in north American healthfood stores. ..Here is nopale cactus, which grows wild in the desert southwest, Mexico and throughout Latin America in dry climates. It also lowers blood sugar gradually and it tastes mild enough for the entire family. “
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I really do like to eat…. all kinds of foods. I like to look at photos of food, and I like to read about food.
Food is cool, food is fun. But don’t play with your food….
I found a fun Food Blog at Portland Food Blog.
Check it out.
Jun 30
We had a customer ask if we de-thorn the cactus leaves before shipping….
Here’s what I wrote back…..
We don’t do any cleaning on them. They have a waxy coating on them naturally, to keep moisture in. The stomata (little holes for transpiration) on most plants open during the daytime to allow the photosynthesis process to run and exchange gases…. but cactus keeps those pores closed in the daytime so that it doesn’t lose moisture, it opens them in the evening and exchanges its gasses while it is cool and relatively moister outside. Each night it pulls in carbon dioxide, and stores it in special cells. It will also release its oxygen that it stored up during the day while it was in the process of converting the carbon to oxygen through the chlorophyll in the leaves. It’s a pretty slick way to work around the local temperature extremes and water shortages. But it also helps us in shipping. We try to do most of our picking early in the day. This is when we reckon the leaves have less free oxygen in them. The high presence of oxygen will oxidize the leaves sooner. When we pick and ship the leaves, they already have their stomata closed. They will open in the box, and warm moist air will envelope the leaves. They store pretty well in those conditions, so shipping is not too bad on them as long as they don’t get crushed.
It is for a similar reason that we don’t scrub them down to de-thorn them. We don’t want to open the leaves to any pathogens. We want the leaves to get to you as nice as possible as the grade, maturity and shipping routine we use can allow. We really want people to be stoked and excited at how good they are!
But this brings up the other issue.. spines… in which our leaves are very admirably not really equipped with. In fact, you can handle these with plastic dishwashing gloves…. and all they need is a scrubbing down with a kitchen pad…. then a trim around the thin edges, and a rinse and pat-dry. So you might find yourself taking a minute per leaf once you have it down… that might take three leaves to get the routine…. it’s pretty easy, no more prep time than a bell pepper really or a cucumber
You’ll notice that the leaf is pretty easy to handle… that is due to the refined variety we grow and sell. The spiny ones are really tough to learn to clean, ours is very much better and easy to prepare.
Read this article to find out what happened what the Associated Press bought some and didn’t clean them! http://www.rivenrock.com/aparticlemar2004.htm
We have other articles that talk of us at http://www.rivenrock.com/presskit.htm