The red fruits in the center of the counter are Prickly Pear 'Tunas'
The deep scarlet maroon fruits of the Prickly Pear (called Tunas) are magically full of flavanoids and anti oxidants. It is considered a super food or rather fruit. You can read about their nutritional value here:
Collecting and preparing these red wonders is a real piece of work, and though I’ve done it before and was determined this time to come away unscathed I still ended up being skewered with many tiny hairs called, glochids. So small they are hard to even see and very hard to remove. The only thing I have heard works is painting clear nail polish over the porcupined skin and allowing it to dry completely then peal off and the hairs will peal with the polish.
Here is a video on how to collect and deskin them. I put them into a blender (seeds and all) and pureed the whole red mess into juice. Then strained the juice. I put the seeds back in a pod and simmered them to release more of that yummy juice then strained again.
Blending the fruits to extract their juice
Working the juice through the sieve while keeping the seeds out
Prickly Pear Syrup
