Homeschool Fiction

Due to popular demand from my “Enchilada Casserole” post, here is my Vegan-Friendly Prickly Pear Barbeque Sauce recipe. Once I realized that we were going to be able to get a large harvest of prickly pear fruit this past summer, I started reading up on various things people do with prickly pear fruit. Other than the recipes I’ve already posted, we also made BBQ sauce and wine. We’re still working on getting the wine filtered (it currently tastes gross), so I won’t post that recipe until it is perfected. For the BBQ sauce, I modified (and personalized based on my own taste buds) a recipe from The Prickly Pear Cookbook, so I can’t take all the credit for this one (theirs is enough different that you should consider buying the book if you want to see another awesome version; it has a bunch of great prickly pear recipes — even recipes for the prickly pear pads, a.k.a. nopalitos).

Here are a few interesting books regarding prickly pears:

Prickly Pear BBQ Sauce:

• 2-4 cups Prickly pear juice
• 2 cups vegan sugar (e.g. Florida Crystals) or 1 can apple juice concentrate or 1 can white grape juice concentrate or 3-4 cups prickly pear syrup (omit prickly pear juice if you use syrup)
• Large can green chili peppers (or 12 fresh without seeds)
• Small can jalapenos (or 3 fresh without seeds)
• 1 large green bell pepper, washed and seeds taken out
• 1 large red bell pepper, washed and seeds taken out
• 1 large yellow pepper, optional
• 2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1 large can red enchilada sauce
• 6 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons liquid smoke, optional
• Cornstarch, as needed

Blend peppers until smooth (adding in whichever liquid you want from the above). Bring all ingredients to a boil (reduce to simmer until thick, adding cornstarch as necessary). Taste, adjust ingredients accordingly. Use immediately, or refrigerate (or can) and enjoy later. We really like this sauce as a marinade and on sandwiches.

Here is a photograph of one of the jars of Prickly Pear BBQ sauce that we canned:

Related Articles:

• Prickly Pear Fruit Harvesting PART FOUR
• Prickly Pear Fruit Harvesting PART SEVEN
• Prickly Pear Fruit Harvesting PART EIGHT
• Prickly Pear Fruit Harvesting PART SIX
• Prickly Pear Fruit Harvesting PART THREE

By: Lisa