Pear or plum would be two of your lower maintainece fruit trees. Still will require work and help but much less than apple and peach. Read up about your chill hours for your area. Give or take 650-850 hours (below 40 degrees) Lower chill hours means flushes out earlier and more chill hours means comes out later in season.
Hope this gives you a starting point to work from.
Happy Growing David

Liz, it's important exactly where you are. I agree, pears and plums are the easiest.

Here is a link. Click on the Figure Two link and it will show you by county the best variety for you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit Trees for Texas

My grandmother has a pear that overloads itself despite her complete neglect. If you're less interested in the "tree" aspect and more into the "food," you might try blackberry bushes. Those things are indestructible.

Hi Liz-
I planted 4 apple trees four years ago (Ein Sheimer and Anna -a standard size, not dwarf) and have loved them. They're now about 12-15' tall and this summer I got at least two bushels of wonderful apples from two trees. These two varieties (according to the above chart) are recommended for southern Texas, but also do very well here and only require between 200 to 300 chill hours to produce fruit -- They were both bred in Israel for a hot climate. The fruit is crisp and sweet (not mealy at all) and stayed so for nearly 3 months in my fridge - a very good eating apple. I didn't try cooking with them, since we ate them all fresh, but I've read they're good for that as well.

The other two trees died back (fire ants in the roots + drought), but returned the next spring and are now about 4' tall - very healthy and doing well.

If you plant the Anna, you'll need to plant another variety as well - to pollinate.

We also have a huge pear tree that always has tons of pears, but they're a cooking pear (hard & small) so I've never done anything with them. (and, we like apples better) The squirrels seem to like them...

I hope this helps.

Kathi

Here is a link that might be useful: What to look for in purchasing an apple tree

Fuyu persimmon
Jujube
Mexican Plum

I actually love the flavor of mex plum but most people think its too tart. Persimmons rock, taste like a sweet potato apple. I've yet to taste jujube.

We're thinking about planting a Pluot tree. The fruit is delicious and I think they're fairly new.

Pluot's are 75% Plum + 25% Apricot.

Does anyone know if they'll do good in zone 7b/8a and where you can find them.