The Basics: How to pick your own cactus fruit!

If you follow me on Instagram (@keepingitrealblog), you may have seen that a couple weeks ago, I took a detour on a day trip to pick some prickly pear fruit. I used the fruit to make some candies, which I featured the recipe for on this blog a long time ago (like actual years).

I was delighted to see that Phoenix Public Market was hosting a workshop on desert foraging – more specifically, on foraging prickly pears and their fruit! Peggy Sorensen is an expert on desert foraging, and hosted the workshop. Her mother – the absolute sweetest and most adorable lady I’ve ever talked to – was in the audience and talked to me about her daughter and how amazed she is at what she does after the presentation. Seriously, made my day. I also got to talk to Peggy herself afterwards, and she was excited that I was going to be writing about my day and “getting the word out” on edible desert food!

Although I’d harvested prickly pear fruits a couple times before, I learned some great information today! I also got the answer to the pressing question I had last week – what do I do with the seeds?

Basics of Processing a Prickly Pear Fruit (and Pad!)

- First and foremost: be a good steward! Us humans can be greedy and it’s easy to take more than we need simply because it’s there. Sorensen made a point to let us know to be sure to leave fruit on the plant for the birds and bugs that eat the fruit. The fruit also adds a splash of color to the desert, so let it be beautiful!

- It’s actually best for most people to find plants on private property and ask the owners if you can pick their fruit. A lot of “wild” plants may be on owned land and it’s a little sketchy to harvest in a lot of areas, though experienced foragers will tell you where you can safely harvest in the wild J

- Use tongs to gently twist fully red fruits off the plant. Put the fruit in a paper bag or a box. The tiny spines won’t poke through, and you can shake some of them off as part of the first step of removal.

- Sorensen boils her fruit for about 10 minutes. This softens and dissolves the tiny, painful spines as well as sanitizes the fruit, removing any botulism that could be on the plant.

- Remove the spines by burning on a grill or with a torch, or by soaking and rinsing 3-4 times.

- To juice the fruit, there were several methods – the one I use is to place the fruit in a blender and puree. You can also freeze, thaw and smash through a colander; process in a juicer, or use a press.

- You can use the juice to flavor teas and water – just start out using a little at a time. Many people of European and African descent are sensitive to large amounts of the raw juice and can get a little sick. If you start small, you become tolerant to it.

                - use the juice to make jelly candies or jam

                - make syrup for pancakes, ice cream, flavoring drinks, etc.

                - if you make your own kombucha, you can even add it to that during the second fermentation.

Some other cool things I learned

- The pads (green part) are edible, as well, and I’ve eaten them before. La Santisima, a taco shop in Phoenix and Glendale, as some amazing tacos featuring grilled prickly pear pads. You can grill to remove spines or peel and grill to cook. They’re similar to a pepper in texture.

- The pads are also an amazing natural remedy for infections, minor burns, and sunburns. Sorensen said she believes that the pulp and juice from the pads is more effective than aloe vera used this way.

- Filet a prickly pear pad by using tongs to hold the pad. Trim off the sides of the pad where the spines, are, then slice the pad through the middle. You can then score the juicy side of the pad and use that as a poultice for sunburns, or you can cut it up and cook it or grill whole like a steak.

- There are OVER 2,000 edible and medicinal plants in the Sonoran Desert and mountain desert alone. I learned that almost every part of both Palo Verde trees and Mesquite trees are edible – think of all the resources we have access to that we aren’t using simply because of a lack of education on the topic.

- Almost every variety of cactus and its seeds are edible – and they’re super nutritious! “Upright” cacti like saguaros have seeds that are oilier and you can blend into a seed butter. They were called the “salmon of the desert” because of their omega fatty acid content.

- THE ANSWER TO THE PRESSING SEED QUESTION: if you have a strong enough blender, grind the seeds fresh and wet, then dry the pulp in the oven on the lowest setting – break it into powder after dried. Or, dry the seeds out beforehand, brush the dried pulp off with your hands, and pulse the dried seeds in a coffee grinder.

When I spoke to Peggy after the presentation, she told me she was hoping to start teaching classes in –guess where – the west valley, particularly for the city I live in! I’m excited to learn more and hope that she’s able to start this soon. I would love to learn more about what our beautiful desert home has to offer! If you read this blog and are interested in learning more, when I find out more information about this, I will be sure to share it here and on the Instagram!

A 'lil update

Gosh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been up to a lot of exciting stuff lately, and it’s all coming together to shape my future – where I want to live, what I want to do, and how I’m going to do it. To sum up the last several months, I’ve been getting more active in the local community here in Phoenix in a couple of ways:

- I started volunteering at Mesa’s Garden Pool. Check them out by following the link! This was a huge step for me career-wise, as I am not only helping others in the community by volunteering there, but I’m also learning a ton about gardening, urban farming, and sustainability.

- I applied to be a part of the collaboration team for the startup business Delighted By Dessert Hummus. I tried Mackenzie’s amazing hummus about a year ago when she was still in Phoenix selling at farmers’ markets. She was the absolute sweetest person to talk to, and her business and mission to "spread your glitter" reflects that. Now, she’s expanded her business, and her hummus is in stores on the east coast. I’ve gotten the awesome privilege to be a part of their ambassador program –  though they aren’t in AZ yet (no hummus parties til then!), I have the opportunity to learn from successful like-minded entrepreneurs who incorporate care for people and the planet into their business models.

- It’s swim season for Special Olympics again – probably one of my favorite parts of the year. The energy and enthusiasm these athletes have is absolutely amazing. Their openness and eagerness to express love, gratitude, and genuine excitement is contagious and so inspiring to me to be open to others. I always have a blast coaching them, and I can’t wait to see the fun that this season brings.

For more frequent updates and pretty pictures, be sure to follow the Keeping It Real instagram: @keepingitrealblog

Quinoa Tabbouleh

Summer is here in Phoenix, regardless of whether or not the solstice has actually passed. Sunlight stretches itself out across longer days. The noisy kids that used to throw rocks at each other (and our windows) in the grass behind our apartment have moved on to throwing each other into the pool. And, oh yeah, it’s hot. The perk of weather being warmer, however, is that produce like fruits and tomatoes are in season and there are lots to go around. Cheap fruits = happy Emily.

Since it’s so hot (and, honestly, I’m a little lazy when it comes to cooking sometimes), I’ve been eating way more fruits and vegetables than before, and almost no meat. It’s part of a phenomenon that happens to me every summer season, in which I have almost no desire to eat anything except for fruit and smoothies. And while some people - like Jonas (pronounced Yoh-nuss, by the way), the man I bought dates from at the farmers market - may be able to live exclusively on fruit for years, I actually cannot. Not even for a day. What I can do, however, is make food that will sound appealing when I get home from making people large hot black Americanos even when it’s 110 degrees out. One such food is tabbouleh.

Traditionally, tabbouleh is made with bulgur wheat. However, I had no bulgur (it’s not exotic – just whole wheat kernels ground into different sizes), but had lots of quinoa, so that's what I used. It has a similar texture, tastes great, and is also gluten free!

Quinoa Tabbouleh

½ cup dry quinoa, rinsed

¼ cup olive oil

Juice from one lemon

½ a cucumber, peeled and chopped

½ cup of cherry tomatoes, quartered

2 tbsp fresh mint, minced

1 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Black pepper and dried oregano to taste

Add quinoa to a saucepan with 1 ½ cups of water. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to low until the quinoa has absorbed all of the liquid, about 15-20 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool to at least room temperature. While the quinoa is cooling off, juice your lemon and chop the herbs and vegetables. When the quinoa is ready, add the lemon juice, oil, and herbs directly into the bowl and mix so that everything is evenly coated.

You can enjoy this recipe as a salad alongside a protein, or on its own with pita, vegetables, and hummus. Either way, it’s so refreshing, and lasted me a week.

Triple-Grain Chicken Chili

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a little more than obsessed with fiber. It’s my favorite part of carbohydrates – which happen to be my favorite nutrient, by the way. There’s so much fiber does for us in so many ways, it’s really, truly incredible, so I’m always looking for more ways to include it in my daily diet (more on those incredible fiber-powers in a future post). With Winter fully upon us, I’ve been using my crockpot a lot to make soup, stews, and chili because it’s super easy and convenient for cooking in bulk. Chili, for me, is especially awesome because it’s so versatile. Eat it on its’ own, on a baked potato, with eggs, tortillas, as a dip, with steamed greens – the list goes on. It’s sad that it gets a bad rap so often for being a not-so-healthy food, considering it’s typically made with lots of fatty beef, cheese, and salt. Not to say any of those things are necessarily bad, but if you’re on a budget and eat the same thing every day, it can get pretty rough.

I’ve designed this chili to be everything chili is supposed to be – hearty, hot, and satisfying – without all of the grease. It’s also easy to make it vegetarian by leaving out the chicken and using vegetable stock in place of water. The grains give it the same texture that would come from ground beef without the environmental impact and high fat content. This recipe makes about 4 cups of chili, which freezes well for storage. If you have Celiac or gluten allergies, simply leave out the barley and replace it with another grain or more beans!

¼ cup rinsed Quinoa

¼ cup Barley

¼ cup Wild rice

½ cup dry Black beans

2 Bone-in chicken thighs

2 tsp Chili powder

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp Cumin

½ tsp Allspice

½ tsp Cinnamon

1 cup no-salt added crushed tomatoes

½ Onion, diced

1 bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic

Water

Add all ingredients to a crockpot set on high. Cover with water and set to high for 3 hours, then set to low until beans are tender and chicken is cooked through. Be sure to check your water level. If the grains soak in too much water, it will burn the chili and make the entire thing taste bad. Add about ½ cup water if things are looking dry, and adjust as you need to. In the end, you want it to have the thick texture that chili typically has, so don’t worry if things are a little goopy looking!

Here in Phoenix, our weather is looking more like springtime than January, but for those of you on the east coast covered in feet of snow, this is the perfect recipe for being holed up inside over the weekend!

Really Real

So here we are again. Another year past, and another apology post from me for being the worst at updating my blog in the history of blogs. In all truth, the excuses of the past are no more – I don’t have the excuse of busy classes or a too-busy work schedule, though I have managed to stay “busy”, just not with things that are necessarily productive. I’ve never been one to worry much about New Year resolutions. My philosophy on the matter is that every day is the beginning of a new year, so why wait until the calendar resets to decide to make a change? Typically, the types of changes people plan to make for resolutions are fairly important things – change my health, change my finances, fix my relationship – these things are so important to fix ASAP, yet we wait and make excuses, and when we finally do decide to change at the new year, we’re usually not very successful after the high of the holidays has worn off. So, I won’t tell you that I’ve made a resolution to update the blog more often – that’s something that I should take more responsibility with, especially if I really want to be serious about it. But I will tell you why I’ve slacked so much with it, and what I’m going to do to change that.

The theme of this blog is Keeping it Real. My goal is and has always been to inspire others to lead healthier, better lives through diet and exercise the way I have, but in a way that doesn’t become discouraging if you don’t look and act just like me (something I’ve noticed can be difficult in the world of social media). So I’m going to be real here. I’ve never struggled with sustaining my health habits in the past – I’ve always worked out, I’ve always eaten healthy and cooked at home more than I eat out. That is, until the past several months. It’s funny how different people react to different environments. For me, during stressful periods of time, for example, during school, it’s easy for me to make healthy decisions and keep healthy habits. There’s something about life being out of control and non-stop that makes it easier for me to be able to slow down and take control for an hour of my day.

Since graduating, I’ve had a lot more time on my hands, and rather than filling that time with the good habits that I’ve developed for so many years, or taking advantage of the time to start building on my career, I started forming new, not-so-great habits that have distracted me and ultimately brought me to a point where I’ve had little motivation to do anything. I wouldn’t say that I have or ever did hit a “rock bottom”, but I didn’t like where I was going and decided it needed to stop. I had invested too much of myself into other people, and stopped taking care of myself. I fell into depression for several months, and this lead to a number of bad habits to form – staying out later, eating junk food, exercising less, and neglecting my spiritual life. At work, there’s a saying that goes “you need to fill your own cup if you plan to pour into others”. I was failing to fill my own cup, and it was getting dry.

During the past month, I’ve started running again. Running was never an activity I really enjoyed, but there aren’t many pools open in December, so I said to myself, “deal with it”. This week, during my run, I felt good. Great, actually. I felt strong, I felt powerful; I felt like I could run forever. And I realized that it had been far too long since I had felt that way. It had been far too long since I had really felt my heart burn for anything that I used to love, and it felt good to feel that fire again. Before, I had felt that I couldn’t be motivational or inspirational because I wasn’t feeling inspired. And that is why I’ve been so inconsistent with my updates.

So I can’t make any promises whether or not I’ll update daily, weekly, or even monthly. But I will try. Life is unexpected. Sometimes anxiety and depression sets in. Sometimes I let it get the best of me, other times I charge through it. Thankfully, I’m blessed with friends and family who are supportive and keep me inspired. Hopefully, in turn, I can be a source of inspiration once again, and more frequently in this format!

Happy New Year!