Tag Archives: pie

Peach Picking! An Afternoon at Fenway Park Orchards

May 30, 2017Arizona, Blog, International Travel, Nature, Uncategorized, United Statesapple, apples, arizona, baking, family, fresh, fruit, morristown, peach, peaches, pie, preserves, produce, recipe, u-pick, upick, weekendbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

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.

Foodie Tuesdays! Pumpkin Spice Latte Pie

December 1, 2015American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Cooking, Spouses Organization, Uncategorizedbaking, chocolate, Christmas, coffee, cooking, dessert, DIY, food, foodie tuesdays, pie, pumpkin, pumpkin pie, thanksgivingbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Hellooo holiday season! I love Thanksgiving and I love Christmas, so this part of the year is one of my favorites. To kick off the winter holidays, I’m starting a new segment called Foodie Tuesdays. Check back every week for new recipes! I’ll try to stick to international foods, but sometimes I just need some good American pie.

As I mentioned in my post last week, I made a chocolate pumpkin spice latte pie for Thanksgiving. Here’s the recipe:

Gather ingredients.
1. 1 1/2 – 2 lbs prepared pumpkin pie purée. I used one 2 lb can of pumpkin pie filling– the kind that is already spiced.
2. I cup milk
3. 4 eggs
4. 1 1/2 cup melted butter (1 cup for crust and 1/2 cup for pie filling)
5. Chocolate powder to taste (1/4 cup) if you want your latte to be a mocha
6. Finely ground instant coffee to taste (1/4 cup)
7. 1 cup crushed gingersnap cookies
First, prepare your crust. We ground the gingersnap by soaking them in the 1 cup of butter and smashing them with a pastry cutter. You can put them in a plastic bag and crush them if that works better for you.

Mix the crumbs with the butter and use a fork to evenly smash them to the bottom of your pie pan. I used a casserole because I don’t have a pie pan. Such is the budget expat life.

Preheat your oven to 425* F
Beat your eggs. Add them, the milk, and the remaining butter to your pumpkin pie filling.
Fill two small bowls with 1 cup of pie filling each. Add your coffee to one and your chocolate to the other. You may have to add extra of one or the other powder so that the pumpkin does not overpower the other flavors.

Pour the orange pie filling into the pie pan. Smooth the surface.
Drop teaspoons of the coffee and chocolate pie filling all over the top of the orange pie filling
Use a butter knife to swirl and marbleize the two colors

Put the pie in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes. You should turn the temperature down to 350* F after the first 10 minutes.
Voilà! You have created a delicious treat to rival Starbuck’s most famous holiday drink.

Check back next time to find out how to make your own earth-friendly Christmas tree for FREE.

Tropical Thanksgiving

November 29, 2015American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Cooking, Expats, Expats and TCKs, Spouses Organization, UncategorizedAmerican University of the Caribbean, AUC, Caribbean, cooking, cultural, Eating, Expat, family, freinds, International, Island, medical school, ocean, pie, Sint Maarten, sunset, thankful, thanks, thanksgiving, turkey, wavesbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Happy Thanksgiving weekend from the Johnsons! This was my first Thanksgiving outside the United States. Here’s how we celebrated it, expat-style.

Since Thanksgiving is strictly a U.S. holiday, nobody on Sint Maarten got the day off work or school. We weren’t too bothered by this; two of Ben’s classes have ended, so he only had to be at school for three hours. We spent the extra two hours in the morning catching some waves at the beach.

FullSizeRender (12) — Waves at Mullet Bay

Usually, we run in a Turkey Trot (Thanksgiving 5K) on Thanksgiving morning. I have to admit that I felt a little guilty for not running on our family’s annual race day! Between my bad knees, the humidity, and the lack of Thanksgiving festivities, though, I was definitely happy to “settle” for boogie boarding to earn my extra Thanksgiving dinner calories.

Another tradition that I missed was the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Instead of that, I watched Phineas and Ferb in Spanish while Ben was in lab. Maybe I’ll be able to catch some parade clips on YouTube later.

The one traditional thing that I definitely did for Thanksgiving was cook! It was a little lonely to be in the kitchen by myself– usually, my mom, dad, sister, and I all work together to make Thanksgiving dinner. This year, we went to a Thanksgiving potluck with our church group, AUC’s Christian Medical and Dental Association. I made bread rolls and pumpkin pie. I didn’t have a pie pan, so Ben put a sign next to my casserole-dish pie that said ” πr² .” I don’t know if anyone got it, but we thought it was funny.

Since there were three other people also making pumpkin pie (Thanksgiving calls for a LOT of pie, people!), I decided to make pumpkin spiced latte pie with chocolate swirls. You’re welcome, Starbucks lovers!

Check back Tuesday for the chocolate pumpkin spiced latte pie recipe on my new weekly segment, Foodie Tuesdays!

I actually got to enjoy three Thanksgiving dinners! It would have been four, but I missed the one put on my the AUC spouses organization because we rented a car that day and needed to get all our shopping done.

The first Thanksgiving dinner I had was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. My friend Stacy invited us to share in their holiday celebrations with their visiting family. She and her future mother-in-law made a delicious, home-cooked, Southern-style feast!

The second Thanksgiving meal I had was at lunch on Thanksgiving Day. American University of the Caribbean doesn’t give students the day off school, but they do give a free lunch with turkey, potatoes and all the traditional fixings!

The last Thanksgiving feast we had was the potluck with CMDA. There were about 30 people there– friends, neighbors, classmates, and people we’ve never seen before. There was a row of tables filled with aromatic dishes, and more dessert than anyone could handle. Yum! CMDA president Blake carved the turkey, Ben carved the ham, we said a prayer of thanks, and then we all sat down to enjoy the meal and the beautiful ocean view from the porch.

I was thrilled to see these little guys at the potluck.

When we got home later, we Skyped my parents. Even though we missed them, my sister,who was in Wyoming for the holiday, and Ben’s family who are in various parts of the world, it was good to be able to talk to family and share a part of day with them, even if we could not share a meal.

What an amazing sunset. What a great day. We have so much to be thankful for: food, friends, family, video chat and email, the kids and coaches on the baseball team, our island paradise, school, church, and so much more… most of all, the saving grace of God. He is so good to us, and has blessed us more than we could ever imagine.

Caribbean Cooking: Macaroni Pie

October 27, 2015American University of the Caribbean, Caribbean, Cooking, Expats, Expats and TCKs, International Travel, Spouses OrganizationCaribbean, cooking, cultural, culture, dinner, food, macaroni, meal, noodles, pasta, pie, recipebreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Meet my friend Aqiyla! Today she is going to teach us to make a yummy Caribbean dish called macaroni pie. Aqiyla hails from Canada, but her family is actually originally from the Caribbean. This is a meal that her grandparents brought from these sunny islands years ago.

First, gather your ingredients:

-Elbow macaroni

-2 or 3 eggs

-1 1/2 cup condensed milk

-Cheese to your liking

-Oil or nonstick spray

-Salt and pepper

Next, boil, your macaroni. You want it to be al dente at this stage, so don’t let it get soggy!

While the macaroni is boiling, crack 2 to 3 eggs in a bowl and beat them. We used three eggs, but you may only need two. I bought the baby eggs because they are literally half the price of jumbo eggs at our neighborhood Asian market.

When your macaroni is done boiling, drain it and mix in the egg. Make sure to stir it in quickly, so that you don’t end up with giant chunks of scrambled egg as they cook in your hot noodles!

Also, preheat your oven to 350* F or 170* C.

After the egg, mix in your condensed milk. Make sure you have enough enough to thoroughly coat your noodles with a thin film of milk left at the bottom of the bowl. This means you’ll need to stir it in a bit at a time and fold it into your noodles somewhat slowly.

Next, salt and pepper to taste.

Now, your macaroni is ready to go into the baking dish! Grease your dish and pour in the macaroni.

I used a pot because I don’t own baking dish.

That’s how it goes when you sell everything and start over.

Once you pour it into the dish, sprinkle cheese generously, according to your preference. Yum.

Put the macaroni in the oven. Let it bake for 30-45 min. When it the cheese looks dark, crispy, and bubbly, it is done!

Serve and enjoy!

This was a win at our house. It’s simple to make and a good break from the pasta dishes I routinely make for dinner. We’ll be adding this to the recipe box for sure!

Breana's Blog

A writer's adventures around the world