Oh, did you think nut milk bags were just for nuts? Prickly pear fruit are in season now and they can be found in many parts of Topanga, perhaps in your own backyard! With a little work, they can safely be made into a delicious juice that’s great on its own or in cocktails. We opted to freeze our juice in a silicone ice cube tray and popped them into sparkling water for a refreshing spritz 🍹 The fruit are solid red when they’re ripe, so leave the ones that still have some green on them. You’ll want to wear thick gloves when you harvest, or go slowly with metal tongs, avoiding touching both the big spines and the smaller glochids. Both can prick you! 🌵 For extracting the juice, there’s many methods out there but we chose the spray, blend and strain method. We first sprayed them with a pressure sprayer while shaking them around which knocked off most of the big spines. You can also scrub them off, burn them off, or carefully peel the skin. Next they went into a high powered blender with some spring water until the juice was nice and smooth. The juice then went through a metal sieve which filtered out a good bit of seeds and skin. Next I gently squeezed the juice through one of our organic cotton nut milk bags from @simple_ecology which was able to filter out the tiniest bits the sieve missed. The cubes turned out great and the color as they melted was so pretty! The flavor is closest to watermelon though not very sweet or tart. You might like to add lime juice or something to sweeten 🍉 Other great uses to consider for your cotton strainer bag: cold brewing coffee, making sun tea, straining yogurt and of course making nut milks 🥛