I’ve been back in the USA for a few days and have a myriad of little health annoyances that have cropped up in the dry desert air, from painfully chapped lips, dry skin, sinus congestion, a scratchy throat and once again constipation. I’ve often said that although you can eat healthy in either the USA or Thailand, it takes a lot more conscious work to do it in America. I am sure there are a lot more chemicals and pesticides in use and I usually am 10-15 pounds heavier in the US. Today I realized I need to start eating back to nature foods, which in this case coincided with a lot of pretty Christmas reds, whites, and greens.
I’m back to my aloe shakes, the aloe for which I harvested in the front yard. I used this along with the pomegranates from our tree, which are a perfect deep red inside this year.
We cut the spiky sides off some of the aloe along with the pomegranate.
This was added to a blender along with some extra berry pomegranate juice. The end result was a tasty shake that definitely helps with constipation.
In general I realized that I need to increase my uptake of fruits and vegetables, especially those that are either harvested here or are highly compatibe with the desert climate. We finally got a few nopales prickly pear cactuses to grow in the yard, such as this one in front of the blue agave.
A cactus salad, anyone? I’ve used the prickly pear fruits to brew wine but the paddles are also edible. To use them cut off the cactus spikes as my daughter is doing here, then chop the paddles into small pieces.
Cook the cactus in boiling water with a little bit of salt for 10 minutes or so and let cool. We made this classic cactus salad with cilantro, green onions, tomatoes and queso fresco cheese mixed with the juice of two limes, one tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt. The end result was very tasty and colorful too.
It turns out you can cook a salad. Even my younger daughter got to cooking.
Hope you all are enjoying the season. We haven’t figured out how Dusky the cat keeps on climbing the Christmas tree in our room but has not yet managed to knock it down yet. Here’s a photo of the offending feline:
All this reminded me of a Killer’s Christmas song that was one of my favorites when it came out in 2010. I had to replay it and think about how strange it was. Was this my own form of mixed up predictive programming?
Tis the season!
Hi Amy! Glad to see you enjoying yourself with family!
Nopales "paddles" or pads are technically called "cladodes", in case you hadn't come across that bit of trivia yet! Certain species or varieties of Opuntia taste better than others for use as a vegetable. Most nopales varieties are quite frost-tender. Three years ago I rooted some grocery store pads but the very first frost of the winter turned them to mush. Then I got a nopales variety from a cactus collection in Nevada, and they survived last winter's cold okay, but may be borderline in my far-northern California zone. We'll see!
The commenter from Portland might be disappointed to try to eat one of the local cold-hardy varieties. Plus, of course, they are best when picked young and tender.
there is some prickly pear here in Portland thats in someones front yard, looking kinda cold. I wondered today if I should try some. Hmm, would they miss a paddle?