Carolyn Niethammer

A Harvestfest–Dip into Colorado River Beans with Butternut Chips!

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One of the easiest-cooking and most delectable beans of all time (in my beany opinion) is the so-called Colorado River bean. It grows well in the Southwest’s high or low desert and is worth trying in your own garden. We don’t know for sure but its ancestry appears to be from Indigenous communities farther east where it is called “Cut-Short bean.”

I found it grown in Colorado via the NativeSeeds/SEARCH online catalog. A pop-up market at the NSS Conservation Center at River and Alvernon this Saturday, Oct.17 will have it for sale by the pound.

Do take a dip into Colorado River beans. I soak them a full day, drain the water, refill with good drinking water, and cook them slowly in the solar oven to save energy. They also cook relatively fast on stovetop when fully pre-plumped.

When fully cooked and soft, I mash them with my old Raramuri bean masher to a rough but good dip consistency. They are sweet and yummy without any added herbs or spice. For a dip I only add cumin powder, garlic powder, and a touch of spike to taste.

Then…to celebrate this harvest season, I wanted to add something new to the dip party…..

You are in for a surprise treat–with the Three Sisters along–to celebrate a harvest of beans, maize and (tah-dah’) squash!

Pumpkins and squashes are cropping up now everywhere in farmers’ markets and groceries. I’d like to share a simple and fun idea for fixing squashes and pumpkins as dipping chips!

Let’s experiment with some spiced, crisp and nutritious pumpkin chips! My favorite of the pumpkins and squashes is the butternut…..not a native variety but certainly a well-adapted producer in Southwest gardens.

I’m rejoicing in my own butternut squash harvest this year! Isn’t this one a beauty?

To cut consistently thin, long slices of squash, I used the firm center third of my butternut, the sturdy tissue beyond the seed-bearing cavity. (You can use firm tissue of any pumpkin or squash for this. See photos below)

With a super-sharp knife worthy of an Alaskan fisherman, I was able to prepare a cup of wide rectangular strips, perfect to make snacks for two.

I reserved all the non-strip chunks of squash to use in other veggie stews or soups.

As you can see, cutting squash thinly by hand for consistent thickness is virtually impossible. Oh well! That’s what makes them non-commercial–indeed homemade–and it didn’t prove to be a problem with the cooking.

I dredged the strips in a simple mix of olive oil, sea salt and parsley flakes, then set them on a parchment-covered cookie sheet to bake.

Tia Marta’s RECIPE SQUASH OR PUMPKIN DIPPER CHIPS. (makes generous snacks for 2)

INGREDIENTS (super-simple!):

1 – 1 1/4 cup of sliced firm squash or pumpkin tissue of desired shape round, square, rectangular (from any butternut, O’odham ha:l, Magdalena big cheese, zuccini, acorn, Halloween pumpkin….)

1 Tbsp organic cold pressed olive oil

1/2-3/4 tsp sea salt (I used local Sal de Mar, Sea of Cortez salt available from Santa Cruz Chili & Spice Co, Tumacacori, AZ)

spices or flavor sprinkles as desired (e.g.garlic powder, mole powders, curry, chilpotle powder, grated parmesan, cumin)

In addition to the “plain” salt and parsley without topping, I tried three flavor experiments: 1) smoked paprika akin to pimenton from Madrid, 2) chilpotle flakes for a real kick, and 3) Savor Sister Amy’s mole verde mix–all delish, totally different personalities. And the wonderful flavor of the squash came glowingly through with each topping!

Squash Dipper RECIPE DIRECTIONS:

  1. Preheat oven to 400degrees F (200 C)
  2. With sharp knife or vegetable peeler remove squash skin. Cut firm sections of the squash into blocks.
  3. Cut blocks into enough very thin slices to pack 1 cup. Slices should be almost translucent, of any shape large enough to be a dipper (round, square, rectangle).
  4. In mixing bowl, mix sea salt, parsley flakes and olive oil. Add squash slices and stir until each is evenly dredged.
  5. Spread slices onto parchment-covered baking sheets. Sprinkle flavorings on slices before baking, if desired.
  6. Bake in preheated oven until crispy and golden brown, monitoring progress after 10 minutes. Depending on thickness of slices it may take 14-20 minutes.
  7. Crisp up the thicker, flexible chips either in a warming oven, or let them dry to desired crispness on a linen if dry weather.
  8. Enjoy your squash chips with your favorite dip–or by themselves!

No need to fret about “looks.” The thinnest parts of the baking slices will scorch first as the sweetness in the squash caramelizes. And that’s not all bad– The scorched crispy parts taste super-fantastic too!

If you want to be precise, slice with a mechanical vegetable slicer or mandolin. That way your slices will be uniform in thickness and the baking process will be more consistent.

Add some blue corn chips as you serve your squash dippers and your Colorado River bean dip. These Three Sisters will cheer you at your own table. May this trio bless you with their regional harvest fitness and their superb nutrition as you dip in!

Try any pumpkin with today’s recipe, like the lucscious Magdalena big cheese squash which will be available soon at Tucson Village Farm Market on Wednesdays

Above–a harvest of the giant striped cushaw pumpkin Tohono O’odham Ha:l and other winter squashes at Mission Garden

For more inspirational ideas about growing, cooking–even painting–our colorful desert harvests of native pumpkins and squashes, check out the following on this same Savorthesouthwest.blog site or just search with key words “pumpkin” or “squash”:

Sweet Squash Crisp

So Many Pumpkins, So Little Time!

An Artistic Harvest of Desert Foods

Three Sisters for a Holiday Feast

Cushaw Ravioli

The Home and Garden Emporium: A Novel of Resilience, Friendship, and Second Chances

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Hello everyone. It’s Carolyn today with an unusual post—it’s a novel about gardening and life set in Tucson in 1917 and 1918, the years of the European Great War. We call it World War I today. When American soldiers set off for France and Belgium, the army needed to send along food to feed them. The government urged citizens to cut down on consumption of beef, flour, and sugar and instead to eat more vegetables, ones they grew themselves in Victory Gardens. But many didn’t know how to do that in a desert where the growing season is upside down and rain is scarce.

Enter Ellie. Abandoned by her husband when he took off for war leaving her with a pile of debt, she struggled to support herself with a derelict hardware store that she reinvented as The Home and Garden Emporium.  Desperate to get women to buy her rakes and shovels for their Victory Gardens, she talked a quirky neighbor into giving gardening classes. While the men of the town hounded her for debt repayment and urged her to hire male help, her eclectic roster of women students and customers became a community. Later they organized their own cooking classes, sharing ideas for meatless meals, some using vegetables they grew.

Just as the war is winding down, the Spanish Flu arrives in Tucson as it has throughout the planet. Friends and customers were dying. The community needed to learn to protect itself and to grieve the losses.

There is a happily-ever-after second chance at love, but the hero doesn’t swoop into save Ellie. By the time that happens, she has already saved herself.

If you are interested in historical fiction where the characters seem like somebody you’d like to know and their problems are those real people faced, you will like this story. You can order The Home and Garden Emporium in paper or ebook here or better yet you can ask your favorite bookstore to order for you.  

It’s Spring and Time for Nopales

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New spring growth on a Opuntia ficus indica prickly pear cactus in my yard.

When spring comes to the desert it’s time for the prickly pear cactus to send out their new pads, in Mexico called nopales or pencas. This is when they are are tender and perfect to harvest for food. Later in their lives, they develop a woody interior structure. 

It’s Carolyn today. Although I have loved gathering wild foods for half a century, I also deeply enjoy my garden. This year was a fabulous carrot year for me. So my thoughts went to combining carrots and nopales.

This was a really good year for carrots in my garden.

Although all prickly pear pads are edible, the easiest to clean are the tall Mexican type called Opuntia ficus indica. These don’t grow wild in the US, preferring the comfort of a garden where they can be watered and protected from the occasional freezing night. 

The  nopales (or nopalitos when cut up small)  are a common vegetable in Mexico and found frequently in Mexican restaurants. They are a long-time Mexican folk remedy for cholesterol and blood sugar issues.When a team of medical investigators did some experiments about 20 years ago, they found that the traditional knowledge was true! 

Now researchers in the US and Europe are using sophisticated laboratory techniques to investigate prickly pear fruits, pads, flowers and seeds as a cure for a wide array of ills. They think they have properties that are antioxidant, antiviral, anti-tumor, anti-diabetic, anti-parasitic, and anti-cancer. Good reasons to include them in your diet!

If you love trying new foods,  you’ll want to share them with family and friends. It’s best to introduce something unusual in the context of something familiar. This easy recipe fills the bill and is delicious as well. 

Roasted Nopales and Carrots

First, you’ll have to clean the prickly pear pad. Using gloves, scrape against the stickers using a steak knive and rinse to made sure they are clean. 

Scrape against the stickers until the pad is clean. 

This recipe does not use exact amounts because it is very flexible. Use what you have. From one medium prickly pear pad, I cut about 24 match-stick size pieces. I used three medium-sized carrots to make 24 small pieces.  You can also add other vegetables such pencil-thin asparagus, rutabaga, or beets.

Put the cut vegetables in a small bowl and drizzle in a little olive oil and toss to cover. Arrange on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Sprinkle with your favorite spices. I used seasoned salt, pepper, and Trader Joe’s citrus-garlic mix. Be generous as this will give your finished dish vibrant flavor. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Vegetables ready for roasting.

Tip: After roasting, I realized that the cactus pieces had shrunk to half the size of the carrots, changing the proportions of the dish. I suggest using twice the amount of cactus to other vegetables.

 Transfer to serving dish. If you have seasoned generously you won’t need to add any dressing. If you wish more flavor, a simple homemade herb-heavy vinaigrette will work fine.

Tasty vegetable dish ready for the table.

You can learn more about the history of food in Southern Arizona in my latest book A Desert Feast, the story of the last 4,000 years of food in the Sonoran Desert. Want more recipes using  foods of the Southwest? You’d find ideas for collecting and using 23 easily recognized and gathered desert foods in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Foods.  . Recipes from top Southwest chefs are collected in The New Southwest Cookbook. Just click on the titles for more information. You can learn more about me on my website.

Uncovering the Chocolate History of the Southwest

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Chocolate drinking vessels found in Pueblo Bonito.

It may seem a stretch to discuss chocolate in a blog on Southwest food. But chocolate has been in the area since the 9th century. It’s Carolyn writing today and as a chocolate addict, I find the history of chocolate in our area fascinating. In the late 1800s, rancher Richard Wetherill was poking around in Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon in the Four Corners area and excavated 111 cylinder jars. Archaeological technology has advanced greatly since then and researchers have dated the strata in which they were discovered to 1000 CE. Even more interesting, substances inside the jars and in pieces of broken jars indicate that the jars contained chocolate. Since the jars were all found in one room, scientists speculate that the chocolate was being used ritually. Archaeologist Dorothy Washburn also found residue that appears to be from chocolate in bowls from the site of Alkali Ridge, Utah, that date to 780 CE, even earlier.

Consider that the closest place chocolate was grown was 1,200 miles south in Mexico. This was before draft animals were used, so a trader or a series of traders carried chocolate all that way on their back, along with macaw feathers and copper bells.  With all that travelling, chocolate must have required quite a bit of turquoise and other goods in exchange.  

The Spanish Bring Chocolate to the Southwest

When the Spanish missionaries and soldiers came north to what we call the Southwest, they brought chocolate, one of their very few luxuries. Chocolate, being a New World crop, was much less expensive than tea, which had to come by a months-long trip across the Pacific Ocean from Asia. Their drink wasn’t the creamy concoction we now savor. Then chocolate was mixed with water and sometimes honey to sweeten it.

Father Phillip Segesser, one of the earliest priests at San Xavier Mission in Tucson, complained in a letter to his Swiss relatives that every non-Native visitor expected to be served chocolate. Father Segesser lived a very humble life, and he found this presumptuous. It is also interesting that provision orders from the day for both soldiers and priests listed both ordinary chocolate and fine chocolate, the later of which cost twice as much. We can guess what Segesser served his visitors.

During the 1781 Yuma uprising near modern day Yuma, Franciscan priest Fray Francisco Garces requested that he be allowed to finish drinking his chocolate before being beaten to death by the Quechans.

 I was happy in two recent trips to learn more about my obsession. In the large green house at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, I saw a cacao tree up close and was amazed to learn that the flowers grow right from the trunk.

 

Cacao tree in flower in the Atlanta Botanical Garden. See a small green chocolate pod in the upper right.

In Guatemala, I visited an artisanal chocolate maker. I got to see all aspects of converting a cacao bean into a chocolate bar, from opening the pod, to cleaning the beans, then roasting them on a comal before grinding them to a paste and adding sugar.

Just opened cacao pod. The seeds are inside the white covering.

Guatemalan artisan chocolate maker roasts cacao beans over coals.

 

The roasted beans are ground, combined with sugar, and formed into a patty. They are surprisingly oily. Perhaps patties like this were what the early traders brought to Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. 

Chocolate pairs so well with our  mesquite meal–a perfect blend of tropics and desert. These waffles will make a holiday breakfast treat.

Chocolate Mesquite Waffles

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup mesquite meal plus 1 tablespoon

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 egg yolks

1 ¼ cup milk of choice

½ cup oil

2 egg whites beaten stiff

In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients. In a small bowl, combine egg yolk, milk and oil. Stir the wet mixture into the dry ingredients. Fold in egg white, leaving some fluffs. Do not over mix. Pour batter into hot waffle maker and follow manufacturer’s directions.

Makes about 8 waffles.

Recipe adapted from Eat Mesquite (2011) by Desert Harvesters

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You can learn more about the history of food in Southern Arizona in my latest book A Desert Feast, the story of the last 4,000 years of food in the Sonoran Desert. Want more recipes using  foods of the Southwest? You’d find ideas for collecting and using 23 easily recognized and gathered desert foods in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Foods.  . Recipes from top Southwest chefs are collected in The New Southwest Cookbook. Just click on the titles for more information. You can learn more about me on my website.

A Foraging Consciousness for Famine Times

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We aren’t alone. Living through this extended drought and awesome heat in the Sonoran Desert is a major feat for any creature out there–plant or animal–no matter how desert-adapted it may be! We are all feeling it. Difficult to imagine how creatures, like the long-lived desert tortoise, manage through the kind of intense drought we are experiencing.

Even in my back yard, my tended prickly pear, covered in buds and tender nopales last April, is ending this summer with tunas dropping before mature or devoured by cactus wrens, and pads chomped by packrats or ground squirrels.

Tia Marta here to share some thoughts about us humans harvesting from the wild. As I learned from my Tohono O’odham mentor, in earlier times Indigenous people had to suffer through lean times using the desert foods they’d stored from times of plenty. They knew sporatic seasonal productivity is the name of the game in the desert. Wise cultural tradition dictates that you harvest abundance when it happens, share your plenty, and store as much as possible against the expected lean times.

Very few native prickly pears have produced fruit this year in the Sonoran Desert, so as human desert harvesters I feel we must refrain this year, and consider the needs of our wild neighbors, the deer, javalina, cottontails, rodents, birds, etc who need what forage remains– far more than we do.

Instead, I suggest we go for an invasive! How about eating from the white lead tree, known as guaje in Mexico, huaxin by the Aztec in its region of origin? Its presence as an invader into the Sonoran Desert generates interesting controversy. The seeds contain an amino acid mimocine toxic for us mammals who have no rumen for digestion. However Guaje‘s young pods, when green, can be cooked in soups or in tacos, as cooking removes the toxicity. This small fast-growing tree has other positive attributes: It is used as great cattle fodder, provides stovewood fuel, erosion remediation, herbal medicine, and it adds soil nitrogen. Its profuse and often continued flowering makes it a good pollinator support. Caution: it IS an invasive species and, if let loose in our desert, could compromise our precious natives..

Guajes (Leucaena leucocephala) have been known and appreciated in Sonora, Mexico, for decades if not centuries. It is planted on the University of Arizona campus (see UA Arboretum) and is being researched as a potential future food plant for climate change by horticulturists at Mission Garden. I’m glad guaje volunteered in our yard from soil in a potted plant. It created a little grove of blessed shade for us, and bees have been abuzz over its puffs of cream-white flowers every spring.

I recently gathered a gallon bag of dry pods which yielded only 1/8 cup of small seed. They resemble flax seed. I soaked them to see if any were viable. About 1/3 of them swelled. When cooked for 15 minutes to remove mimosine, and drained, they proved nut-like and tasty. I’m adding them to my home-made bean dip. As a legume they will provide good protein in addition to texture and new flavor.

To go with the dip, I’m using a scant amount (a tablespoon per 8oz) of my conserved prickly pear juice, harvested and frozen August last year, with flavored fizzy, gingerale and a splash of mescal. With this dressed up punch, we’re sending a toast to all desert creatures out there! We hope they are benefitting from any prickly pear tunas that may be ripening in our hot, dry desert!

May we be conscious of all the plants and animals around us during these weather-stress times! For more ideas on local “famine foods” see SavorSister Carolyn’s post and Tia Marta’s post. For ideas of what we can grow in prep for more climate extremes, check out Ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan’s inspirational book Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land: Lessons from Desert Farmers on Adapting to Climate Uncertainty.

A colorful assortment of Tia Marta’s watercolor art-notecards depicting Southwest Native American heirloom foods can be found at the Mission Garden shop, or online at NativeSeeds/SEARCH.

Sonoran Summer Tacos with Nopales and Verdolagas

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It’s Carolyn today and I’m out in my garden to pick some delicious and healthy vegetables to bring you a season-spanning recipe. If your Ficus Indica prickly pear (the Mexican tall kind) sent out its leaves a little late this spring, you probably have a few smaller pads that are still tender enough to cook. Combine those with the purslane in your summer garden for a delicious vegetable side dish or taco filling.  If you don’t have your own cactus. you can always pick up some nopal pads at any Mexican grocery store. If you buy the kind already cleaned, you’ll need to use them right away as once they are scraped, they go bad quickly. We have previously discussed how to clean prickly pear pads here. 

We’ve also discussed purslane previously in this blog here, but I’ll copy the nutritional information because it is so important:

It’s sad but true that right now people are out in their yards pulling these plants out and tossing them in the garbage (or compost for the more enlightened). They should be tossing them in the wok  or frying pan (see recipe below.) Purslane provides six times more vitamin E than spinach and seven times more beta carotene than carrots. It’s also rich in vitamin C, magnesium, riboflavin, potassium and phosphorus. One cup of cooked purslane has 25 milligrams (20 percent of the recommended daily intake) of vitamin C.

Especially important to those of us eating a modern diet, purslane is very high in an essential omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Omega-3s are a class of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids. Your body cannot manufacture essential fatty acids, so you must get them from food. Certain fibers also help in controlling blood sugar.

If your aren’t familiar with purslane or verdolagas, here’s a closeup photo:

Here are all your ingredients for the tacos: (top) prickly pear leaves and purslane, (bottom) onion slices, garlic and poblano chile.


This is what the ingredients will look like cooked.

Sonoran Summer Tacos

2  2×4-inch prickly pear pads or equivalent

½ white or yellow onion

2 cloves garlic, minced (1 teaspoon)

2 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil

1 cup verdolaga (purslane), packed

1 roasted, peeled, cleaned Anaheim or poblano chile, cut into pieces

      (or 2 tablespoons chopped canned green chiles)

4 corn tortillas or small flour tortillas

2-4 tablespoons crumbled cotija cheese or cheese of choice

Using rubber gloves, clean the stickers from the prickly pear pads. Rinse and cut into pieces 2 inches by 1/8 inch (roughly the size of a wood matchstick.) Set aside.

Cut the onion into thin strands by cutting from the root to the stem (not crosswise). Add the oil to a heavy frying pan and begin sautéing the onion over low medium heat. You want it to cook slowly until soft and light brown. After about 10 minutes, add the garlic. While that is happening, you can prep the rest of the ingredients.

Cut the fresh chile into pieces about 1 inch by 1/8 inch. Chop the verdolagas (purslane) roughly. After 10-15 minutes when the onions are ready, stir in the greens and chile and continue to cook.

Coat a heavy frying pan with a light spray of oil and soften the tortillas. Divide the vegetables among the tortillas. Sprinkle with cheese and fold over.

Every recipe writer whether for a blog or cookbook, needs a taste tester. Is it good? Would you eat it again? Here is my taste tester who has eaten his way through five cookbooks and dozens of these blog posts over forty years.

Chief taste tester Ford Burkhart works his way through the Sonoran Summer Tacos for lunch. He gave them the thumbs up. 

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You can learn more about the history of food in Southern Arizona in my latest book A Desert Feast, the story of the last 4,000 years of food in the Sonoran Desert. Want more recipes using  foods of the Southwest? You’d find ideas for collecting and using 23 easily recognized and gathered desert foods in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Foods.  . Recipes from top Southwest chefs are collected in The New Southwest Cookbook. Just click on the titles for more information. You can learn more about me on my website.

GET READY FOR NOPALITO SEASON

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Grilled Chicken with Nopalito and Pineapple Salsa

Grilled Chicken with Nopalito and Pineapple Salsa (from The Prickly Pear Cookbook)

(Note: I will be teaching a class on cooking with nopales at the Presidio of Tucson on April 3. You can sign up on their website.)

The new prickly pear pads (nopales) that we cook and use for nopalitos are usually ready in from March to early May.  It’s Carolyn here today tempting you with two recipes for a delicious salsas made with nopalitos. (Definition of nopalito: a nopal, or cactus pad, cut into little pieces).

Why bother to learn how to use prickly pear pads? For hundreds of years, both the fruit and pads were considered folk medicine in Mexico and early research showed that the fibers in nopales were helpful in curbing blood sugar. Today, researchers in the US and Europe are using sophisticated laboratory techniques and specially bred mouse models (that would be transgenic mice, not transgender mice)  to investigate prickly pear fruits, pads, flowers, and seeds as a cure for a wide array variety of ills.

Investigators are looking into prickly pear compounds as antioxidant, antiviral, anti tumor, anti diabetic, and antiparasite.  It may be useful in combating a range of cancers including leukemia, lung, gastric, colon, and ovarian. Studies have considered its use in the treatment of ulcers and alcoholism and a possible role in boosting memory and energy metabolism. Many research labs are investigating prickly pear for cancer prevention.

The many varieties of prickly pear put out their new growth when the spring warms up. All prickly pear pads are edible (meaning they not only won’t kill you but in this case are very nutritious), but they are only appropriate for food when they are new. After about six weeks, they develop a fibrous infrastructure. The easiest kind of pads to prepare are those from the large Mexican variety of prickly pear that do not grow wild north of Mexico. You can grow them in your yard if your winter doesn’t bring much freezing. Or you can get them at a Mexican grocery story. They are called Ficus indica or sometimes Burbank because Luther Burbank did some breeding work on them. The wild cactus pads are also delicious, but harder to prepare because of the abundance of spines.

You can do a rough estimate of when a pad is ready to pick if it is about the size of your hand. The nopales available in Mexican grocery stores are grown by farmers who know how to manipulate the plant to keep fresh pads coming year ’round.

Pick nopales in the spring when the size of your hand.

Pick nopales in the spring when the size of your hand.

To prepare the nopales, you’ll use  tongs, of course, and then don rubber kitchen gloves to protect your hands as you get rid of the stickers. You don’t need industrial strength gloves, just good quality ones from the grocery store will do. Using a common steak knife, scrape vigorously against the growth (from outer edge to stem) to remove the stickers.

Scrape the thorns vigorously in the direction of the stem.

Scrape the thorns vigorously in the direction of the stem.

The edge has lots of stickers so just trim it off.

IMG_0196At this point, you can cut it into small pieces to cook or leave it whole and cut it up later. You can cook them in a frying pan filmed with oil, or use the Rick Bayless method (of TV show fame) and toss them with a little oil, sprinkle with sale, put on a cookie sheet and roast in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.  In any case, you should check them and turn them over as they cook.

Cut into small pieces to cook.

Cut into small pieces to cook.

The nopales will turn from bright green to a more olive color as they cook. The gummy sap that some people find objectionable will dry up and become less noticeable.

The cooked nopalitos turn from bright green to olive.

The cooked nopalitos turn from bright green to olive.

You can also cook nopales on the barbecue alongside some chicken to make a delicious taco. 

Here’s the recipe for the sauce in the picture at the top of the blog:

Nopalito and Pineapple Salsa

1 raw, cleaned prickly pear pad

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 cup canned crushed pineapple packed in it’s own juice

¼ cup finely chopped red bell pepper

¼ cup thinly sliced green onions, including some tops

1 tablespoon canned green chiles

1 finely minced serrano chile (optional)

½ teaspoon finely minced garlic

2 tablespoons lime juice

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon finely minced cilantro (optional)

Cut prickly pear pad in 1 ½ inch squares.  Film a heavy frying pan with the oil and add the prickly pear pads.  Cook over low heat, turning occasionally, until pieces have given up much of their juice and are slightly brown. Remove from pan, cool, and chop into pieces as wide as a matchstick and about ¼-inch long.

Transfer to medium bowl.  Add remaining ingredients, stir to combine and set aside for flavors to mingle.

Nopalito and Bean Salsa

Here’s an even easier recipe and you might have everything except the nopales in your pantry.

1 1/2 cups commercial red salsa

1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed

1/2 cup cooked nopalitos

1 tablespoon lime juice

1-2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Serve with chips.

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You can learn more about the history of food in Southern Arizona in my latest book A Desert Feast, the story of the last 4,000 years of food in the Sonoran Desert. Want more recipes using  foods of the Southwest? You’d find ideas for collecting and using 23 easily recognized and gathered desert foods in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Foods.  . Recipes from top Southwest chefs are collected in The New Southwest Cookbook. Just click on the titles for more information. You can learn more about me on my website.

Welcome to 2025

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Savor Sisters (from left) Emily Rockey, Amy Valdes Schwemm, Martha Burgess, and Carolyn Niethammer gather to plan out the Savor year. We sampled a mesquite apple cake that may show up in a post.

As the Savor the Southwest blog enters its 13th year, we are so grateful to you, our readers, for following along and indulging us as we share our love of the flavors of the Southwest using both wild and cultivated plants.  During those years we have entered 370 posts sharing recipes for everything from Christmas cookies (mesquite gingerfolk, anyone?) to how to cook quince. Our readers hail from nine foreign countries as well as the United States. 

This year, we are thrilled to welcome a new Savor Sister, Emily Rockey. Emily has worked as a professional gardener for public gardens including most recently Tucson’s historic Mission Garden. Now as she returns to the university to learn even more about the soil that supports both wild and cultivated plants, she has time to share with us her expertise and creativity. Read her full bio on the Authors page. She has already shared her method for making prickly pear wine in a guest post last year. From now on she will be a regular and we are thrilled to welcome her. 

Lime Marmalade-Make It Spicy and Boozy

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This is the season for small Mexican limes. Trees are usually very prolific and owners are happy to share the harvest. They are also available in produce sections of some store, particularly in the Southwest.

I live a five-hour drive from some glorious Mexican beaches along the Gulf of California. When I was younger, we often headed there on camping trips. As soon as we crossed the border, we’d buy a bag of Mexican limones from kids hawking them on the street and a bottle of tequila. A few sucks on the limes and a few swigs of the tequila and our vacation had begun. It’s Carolyn with you today. My days of crashing on the beach in a sleeping bag are over, but the love of the flavors that evoke our earlier adventures remains. Today I’ll show you how to combine those flavors into an adults-only marmalade.

This is the best season for the small limes called limones in Mexico or Mexican or Key limes elsewhere. If you live in a warm climate and have a friend with a tree, they will probably be happy to give you some. They are also widely available in grocery stores. Spike them with tequila or mescal and maybe jalapeño and you’ve got a treat made for gift giving. But keep some for yourself.  This is an adaptation of a recipe from the 1965 version of “Joy of Cooking” that I have used for all my citrus marmalades for decades.

This is all you need to make a delicious lime marmalade: limes, sugar, some tequila or mescal, and a jalapeno

While tequila will work just fine, I prefer mescal for the smoky distinctive flavor. The soaking steps are to make sure the the rinds are very soft and almost melt into the rest of the marmalade.

Here’s the marmalade happily boiling and getting thick.

The thermometer registered 220 degrees but had risen another degree in the time it took me to focus the camera. Moves fast at this point.

Boozy Spicy Lime Marmalade

(Makes 3 cups)

1 cup ground Mexican limes (11-12)

3 cups water

3 cups sugar

1 small jalapeño (optional)

1/4 -1/2 cup tequila or mescal

Quarter the limes and remove any seeds. Slit the jalapeno lengthwise and remove seeds and ribs. If you are using a food processor, add the quartered limes and jalapeno and process until all pieces are very fine. If you are using a blender, add the quartered limes and jalapeno and one cup of the water. Whirl until all rind pieces are fine.

Add fruit mixture to a large pot and add three cups of water or just two if you already used one cup in the blender. If any larger pieces of rind made it through, take them out and chop or slice finely. Let this sit for at least 12 hours. This softens the rind. (No, don’t get up at 2 a.m. if this is when the 12 hours are up. Proceed when convenient.) Bring the mixture to a boil and let sit for at least another six hours.

During the wait time, you can collect your jars. You will need enough jars for 3 cups. Sterilize them by covering with water and bringing to a boil or run them through a hot dishwasher cycle. If you use standard jars with two-part lids, they will seal. If you use recycled jars that don’t seal, you will need to store the marmalade in the refrigerator. Place the clean jars on clean newspaper or a kitchen towel.

When ready to proceed, add the sugar to the fruit, stir to combine, and bring the mixture to a slow simmer. Cook until it registers 220 degrees on a thermometer. This will take about 30 minutes. If you don’t have a cooking thermometer, take out a little and put it on a saucer in the freezer. (Turn the heat off under the marmalade while doing this.) If it firms up after 5 minutes, it’s done. If not, keep cooking. Watch closely. Once the temperature is reached, pour in the tequila or mescal. It will bubble furiously while the alcohol burns off. You’ll have to cook a little while longer to bring the temperature back up. At the end the temperature goes up quickly. Stir, scraping the bottom, very frequently to keep it from sticking and burning.

Ladle into jars. The marmalade will firm up as it cools over the next day.

(Note: If you’d like to make this quite spicy, add either more jalapeno or a small serrano chile.)

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Carolyn Niethammer is a cookbook writer and cooking teacher. Find more Southwestern recipes in The New Southwest Cookbook and Cooking the Wild Southwest on-line or ask your favorite bookstore to order for you. Discover why Tucson was named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in her book A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage.

Tepache: An Sonoran Summer Favorite

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Josefina Lizárraga served her tepache at a recent event at Mission Garden in Tucson. Josefina is a font of wisdom on the traditional foods of the Sonoran Desert.

The summer heat has settled in here in Southern Arizona and cooling drinks are the order of the day. Of course, there is always water, but it’s nice to be amused by something more flavorful. 

It’s Carolyn today, bringing you a recipe for tepache, a simple pineapple drink that is a classic regional favorite. It is made with pineapple peels, the part you usually throw away, and a Mexican sugar staple, a hard cone of brown sugar called piloncillo. Properly made, tepache has a slight alcoholic zing. It won’t get you drunk, but it’s best reserved for adults. 

We recently learned how to make tepache from Josefina Lizárraga, who comes often to Mission Garden in Tucson to share her tips for dealing with local fruit. She is affectionately called La Madrina del Jardín. The process is pretty simple.

A nice ripe pineapple, a cone of piloncillo, and a jar are all you need to make tepache.

Tepache Recipe

Choose a ripe pineapple with a nice fruity fragrance. Wash the outside. As you cut off the peel, leave a little more of the fruit than you would if you were tossing it out. Cut the peel and the core into smaller pieces and add to the jar.

Bring about two cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan and add the piloncillo. Turn off the heat and let the sugar dissolve. If you can’t find piloncillo, use 8 ounces of dark brown or turbinado sugar.

Put the pineapple peels into your gallon glass jar and add whatever fruit you won’t be eating as well. Adding some of the fruit will give your tepache more flavor. You can also add a few cinnamon sticks.

Cut the pineapple peel and core into chunks.

Add the dissolved sugar and water and top up the water to about 3/5ths. Cover the jar with a cloth. DO NOT SCREW DOWN A LID. Put the jar on your counter. Josefina says just 4 to 4 1/2 days. Longer will result in vinegar. Refrigerate your tepache and enjoy with ice.

This is Josefina’s tepache she was serving at Mission Garden.

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You can learn more about the history of food in Southern Arizona in my latest book A Desert Feast, the story of the last 4,000 years of food in the Sonoran Desert. Want more recipes using  foods of the Southwest? You’d find ideas for collecting and using 23 easily recognized and gathered desert foods in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Foods.  . Recipes from top Southwest chefs are collected in The New Southwest Cookbook. Just click on the titles for more information. You can learn more about me on my website.