Tag Archives: fruit

Peach Picking! An Afternoon at Fenway Park Orchards

Arizona, Blog, International Travel, Nature, Uncategorized, United States, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Did you know that Arizona is a pretty popular agricultural area? Arizonans grow oranges, spinach, lemons, wheat, flowers…. and peaches! Yum! Yep, even here in the desert, the least likely place you can imagine, you can grow all sorts of delicious things. Last weekend, my husband, my parents, and I headed to Morristown, Arizona to pick peaches at Fenway Park Orchards. There’s nothing like sourcing your food straight from the growers. Here’s a bit about this awesome little u-pick farm.

 

What to Expect from Peach Picking at Fenwick Park Orchards

It’s really trendy right now to eat local, eat clean, and eat organic. But hasn’t that always been the best way? Fenwick Park Orchards is a pesticide free, fertilizer free grower. Of course, this has a host of health benefits, but it also gives the fruit another huge advantage: the taste! According to the young man who briefed us on peach picking, the lack of chemicals allows the rich flavor of the fruit to come through. Our guide said that every singe tree has its own distinct taste. He was right! Wow!

 

 

We had the chance to try just about every tree and find our favorites. When you’re picking in the orchard, you’re entitled to eat as many peaches as you like, free of charge! The u-pick peaches at Fenway Park Orchards are a little bit more per pound than your average (dry, tasteless) supermarket peaches, but you make up for the difference with all the fruit you eat. Oh my word. Peaches off the tree are simply heavenly.

 

 

My parents love peach tea. They like to get peach sweet tea from Dutch Bros. Some of these peaches tasted exactly like that tea!

 

 

An hour’s drive from my parents’ home in Glendale was more than worth time in the peace and quiet of the beautiful orchard. It’s nice to get back to nature and get a little dirt under your fingernails once in a while! I think we all feel the call to to remember our ancestor’s ties with the land now and then.

 

 

By the end, we were all hot, sweaty, sticky, and oh-so-happy.

 

 

We also had about thirty pounds of peaches to take home!

 

 

Peach Recipe Ideas

What do you do with thirty pounds of delicious, juicy, freshly-picked peaches? Why, you make tons of peachy delights with them!

 

 

As soon as we got back to my parents’ house, we set to work on my dad’s personal favorite peach dessert: cobbler! He searched online to find a peach cobbler recipe that included blueberries.

 

It was delicious! Fresh produce makes all the difference.

Of course, there are plenty of other things to do with peaches.

 

 

Here are some recipes to try:

 

Fenway Park Orchards Info

Cost: The peaches cost $2.39 per pound when we visited. Of course, this price fluctuates from season to season.

Hours: You can visit Fenway Park Orchards from Tuesday through Sunday, 8:30 am to 4:00 pm.

Coupons: Visit the Fenway Park Orchard website for a coupon.

Contact info: 

  • Website: FenwayParkOrchards.com
  • Phone: 623-388-2603
  • Email: away106824@aol.com
  • Address: 42610 Highway 60-89
    Morristown, AZ 85342

 

Fruit seasons:

Apples: June and July

Peaches: May and June

Peach season in ending, but apple season is just around the corner! We’ll be in Arizona for a few weeks yet, so we will definitely be back to Fenway Park Orchards to pick apples, If you’re in the Phoenix area between May and July, be sure to take a side trip to Morristown for some fresh produce. After all, there’s nothing like eating local, wherever you are.

African Beef Sauce

Africa, Cooking, Expats and TCKs, International Travel, Third Culture Kids, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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I need a little Africa in my life!

Last week, my friends Taylor and Bethany came to visit. While they were here, they treated Ben and I to a special dinner. Since food is expensive here, and we don’t often buy meat or certain fruits and veggies, they gave us the gift of yummy by taking me shopping and buying me groceries for an awesome meal.

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We decided to make one of Ben’s favorites: meat sauce on rice, Africa style. Well, sort of. We didn’t have any curry powder. But I improvised, and it turned out great!

You need:

  • A couple pounds of beef
  • Rice
  • Oil for frying
  • An onion
  • 4 oz of tomato sauce
  • 2 T pilau masala
  • 1 T of garlic
  • 1 t of ground ginger
  • 1/4 cup corn starch
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 cups Chicken broth (or bouillon cube and water)

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Prepare rice.

Cut the meat into one-inch cubes. Slice onions.

Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry onions until translucent. Remove from pan.

Fry meat until thoroughly cooked.

Add spices to meat and stir.

Add tomato sauce, water/broth, and onions. Allow to simmer.

Slowly whisk in corn starch until sauce is thick.

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Serve sauce over rice. Pair with tropical fruit and salad. Enjoy!

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A Garden in the Desert

Arizona, International Travel, Nature, Uncategorized, United States, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ironically, I had to go back to the desert to find the garden.

One strange thing about living on Saint Martin is the lack of cultivation. You’d think that a tropical paradise would be dripping with succulent fruit, but this one’s not. And I can’t try to grow anything myself, because the only dirt I can call my own in the soil in the dustpan.

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Early this morning, I landed in Phoenix, Arizona, where I grew up and where my family still lives. When the sun rose, my mom took me on a tour of her garden.

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I have never been able to coax more than a sad cactus to grow in the hard clay we Arizonans like to call dirt. My mom, however, has a true green thumb. She and my dad have conquered the bugs, rats, birds, hard soil, and lack of rain by building two beautiful raised gardens near their citrus trees.

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The sunflowers are recovering from a storm

The first raised garden is full of vegetables and a row of giant sunflowers. We picked some carrots and lettuce. Fresh carrots hold some many good memories for me. We planted them in our garden when I was small, and I remember feeding the root to my cousins’ horses and the greens to their rabbits. Horses thought carrots were treats, so I was convinced that they were basically candy.

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We enjoyed the fresh lettuce and tomatoes in our sandwiches at lunch. In Saint Martin, lettuce is expensive and goes bad more quickly than we can eat it. I never buy it, so it was a treat. Especially since it was fresh picked.

 

 

 

The flower garden is beautiful. Can you tell what my mom’s favorite colors are? She grows daisies, poppies, and other bright blossoms. The hollyhocks, sadly, did not decide to grace us with their presence this year.

Last but not least is the little orchard. My parents have an orange tree, a lemon tree, a grapefruit tree, and a tiny lime tree with one baby lime. They’ve recently planted a peach tree. They also have a strange lemon tree with an orange branch grafted in. The fruit looks like an orange but is bitter like a lemon. It makes interesting lemonade but is not very good eating. Citrus actually grows very well in Arizona. It’s one of the state’s five main sources of income, along with cattle, copper, cotton and Grand Canyon tourism.

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Here, in the middle of the desert, good and beautiful things grow. I left behind a land of lush greenery and little produce, and found myself in a dry place with much fruit.

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I think that our Christian lives are like that at times. Sometimes, we find ourselves in an oasis in life, but we discover that we bear very little fruit in that rich season. Then, we may find ourselves in a desert place. We don’t expect to find growth in our lives in those seasons, because they’re so dry. But when we look at ourselves and our lives, we suddenly realize that the very place that promised so little is the place that cultivated the most growth and fruit.

Are you in a dry season? Don’t slip into discouragement, dear friend. You may not realize what great things God is doing in your life until you come to the end of the wilderness.

 

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.”

-Isaiah 35:1