For our friend Mike’s birthday a couple weekends ago, his girlfriend (my cousin) Alisa planned an awesome surprise party for him.

Mike still has no idea that there is a large hangout going on in his living room.

Realization of the truth slowly settles in.

The theme of the party was sports, which meant that the guys could sit on couches and watch football for hours, and eat. Which is what they would have wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon anyway.

“Wear my Justin Tuck jersey while I watch the Giants defeat the 49ers en route to the Superbowl? Why yes, I think I shall.”

Once Mike had been sufficiently surprised and had finished changing into his Laker’s jersey, Alisa and I made him guess what kind of pie we picked for him (without seeing said pie). He guessed pumpkin cheesecake. The correct answer was…*deep breath*…Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pie with Brown Sugar-Sour Cream Topping.

I’m going to give seven out of ten points for that one…5 for the cheesecake and 2 for the initial “P” sound.

Ain’t they cute?! All three of them!

That’s a fact.

Except for maybe these ladies.

About once a month, a group of my girlfriends get together to catch up on each other’s lives and participate in fun/uplifting activities. For example, this month we made a scrapbook for our friend Kristen’s almost-here baby girl (!!) and ate lots of snacks, and then made mini pies. Sounds great, right?

Thanks girls for letting me teach my first official pie-making class to you. 😉

The recipe I used was one called “Little Fruit Crumb Pies.” The funniest part was that the recipe talks a lot about how this is a “recipe for the kids” and includes quotes like, “have the children gently press the remaining pastry crumbs into the fruit.” So I got to pretend I had a bunch of children making pies with me.

To accommodate the diverse taste buds of our group, we used apples, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, AND rhubarb! Hooray!

Here’s what we did:

1. Press in the pastry (aptly named “Press-in Pastry.” It’s a big bunch of crumbs, and you just take some and press them into the pie tin instead of rolling out a crust. Much easier for a large group of children. Or adults.)

2. Select fruit of choice. The final products here ranged from plain apple to blueberry-raspberry-strawberry. To each her own.

3. Add sugar, flour, spices and lemon and mix it all together.

4. Top with more crumbs.

Then you just figure out how to put eight little pies in the oven so that you’ll be able to retrieve them later without burning yourself…and you’re all set.

Go, little pies, go!

After much anticipation, we were rewarded with…a whole pie each. There is something so fun about having your own little special pie to eat all by yourself. If you want to. I mean, you’re still allowed to share mini pies. They’re just the only pies that you don’t HAVE to share.

Seriously. It’s amazing there. The warm, friendly people, the scenery that really is just as impressive as you thought it was the first time you watched Lord of the Rings, the food….oh my. Levi and I set a personal goal to eat as many green-lipped mussels as possible in one week. And let’s just talk about pies for a second. Observation #1: In the U.S., we love our dessert pies, but savory pies are hardly encountered. This tends to be flip-flopped in commonwealth countries like the U.K. or New Zealand; they’ve got all kinds of savory pies, and there is a chance you may encounter an apple pie, but that’s about the extent of it.

(Observation #2: Handheld mini pies are both practical and adorable.)

Anyway, my friends and I worked together to make a truly multicultural meal: savory pie followed by sweet pie. To be more exact, Beef and Guinness Pie followed by….

Blueberry Peach Pie with Pecan Crumb Topping

Fresh Plum and Port Pie

It’s always a little more work to make pies in someone else’s kitchen. Okay, a lot more work. In the absence of shortening I made all-butter pastry, and in the absence of time, I didn’t refrigerate it for close to long enough. It stuck to literally everything it came in contact. But all’s well that ends well, and the perfect ending to pie (thanks Yaana!) turns out to be…more pie.