Prickly Pear Flowers

Keep an eye out for these gorgeous, succulent treats! They're crunchy, colorful, nutritious and tasty on top of any salad or sandwich. Pluck the yellow or orange prickly pear flower petals and eat them raw or lightly sauteed.

Wild Blackberries

We're at the tail-end of wild blackberry and dewberry season out here in the Texas Hill Country, but there still might be a few of these deliciously tart little gems out in the fields. Watch out for chiggers and snakes and then harvest away!

The kids enjoy eating the berries straight out of our harvest bag

If you manage to harvest enough to freeze or use in cooking, here's a quick and easy way to enjoy them baked:

Wild Blackberry Crostatas

Once baked, the crostatas are best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top

2 c flour
3/4 c sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 sticks cold, unsalted butter
3 to 4 Tbsp. ice water or heavy cream
1 c blackberries

Preheat the oven to 425º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. If you don't have parchment, you can use foil or a nonstick pan but be sure you coat the pan with a nonstick spray or rub it down with butter.

Combine the flour, 1/2 c of the sugar and salt and whisk together. Cut the butter into small pieces and cut in to the flour mixture with a pastry blender or a food processor until the butter chunks are the size of peas. Slowly add 1 tablespoon of liquid at a time and stir or pulse until the dough comes together. Once you can push the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic and let it rest in your fridge for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 days.

Once it has rested and the butter in the mixture has firmed up, remove it from the fridge and divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Sprinkle your counter with flour and roll or press each piece out into an imperfect round (see picture), about 1/8 inch thick, and set on the baking sheet. Spoon several berries into the center of each round and pull the dough up around the berries to form a triangle or square shaped pastry, pinching it at the corners to make sure it doesn't unravel in the oven. Place the whole pan in the fridge for another 30 minutes to allow the dough the rest again.

Remove from the fridge and coat the top of each crostata with egg wash if desired (to make it turn extra golden brown in the oven) and sprinkle the extra sugar over the top. Place the crostatas in the preheated oven and bake for 15 to 25 minutes until brown at the edges. Don't be surprised if some of the blackberry juices spill over during cooking - it will simply add to the rustic look of a crostata! Let cool on a rack and then serve warm. Or, you can store them in the fridge and warm them up in an oven when you're ready to serve.

Prickly Pears

Opuntia engelmannii - Our most common prickly pear cactus species here in Central Texas

Seen any of the new growth on our prickly pears lately? 'Tis the season for many wild edibles, but these young, tender pads are one of the most substantial, nutritious and prolific vegetables available right now. Here's one way to harvest and process them:

1. Put on some very thick, sturdy gloves.
2. While holding one pad with your gloved hand, cut each new pad (new ones have tiny green leaves coming out of the areoles, along with thorns) off just above where it has sprouted off an older pad.
3. While still holding it, trim off the outer edge all the way around to eliminate the many tiny thorns that congregate along the margins of the pad.
4. While still holding the pad, take a knife and scrape off the leaves and thorns from the surface of the pad.
5. Throw the partially cleaned pad in your harvest bucket or bag and proceed to the next pad.
6. Once you've collected all that you need, return to your kitchen and wash the pads under a steady stream of water. At this point, you might want to replace your thorny outdoor gloves with some equally sturdy indoor gloves because the pads will still have some tiny thorns attached. Beware, they hurt!
7. Once you've cleaned off the pads with water (it's OK if you didn't remove every single tiny thorn) slice them and cook them up or freeze them for later use.

These pads were harvested out on our farm. After slicing them, I slid them into a freezer bag and stuck them in the freezer to use for tacos later.

* I will publish more detailed instructions and recipes soon!