These are LITTLE. I made them for kid’s sized hands, so you know they are small. But they were just enough for a meal or possibly and hors d’ouvres for a normal sized person.

ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
salt
pepper

pie dough (recipe, here)
1 egg
water
salt
pepper

If you’ve made your pie dough ahead like I do, bring it out to defrost a little while you make the filling.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil and saute the onion and the garlic until soft. Add the ground beef and cook until just no longer pink.

Add the paprika, worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper and simmer until the flavors are combined. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prep a baking sheet with a silpat.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out your pie dough. I like to make it about 1/4 inch thick, thin enough so it’s not so dough-y but thick enough to hold in the filling. Using a 3″ biscuit cutter, cut out rounds and place on a silpat lined baking sheet. For every one – cut another one – that will become the top part of the pie.

On the bottom cut out use a Tablespoon+ and put the filling down in the middle. Add a second cut out on top and use your fingers to press the seams together. You can also use a fork to put tine marks along the sides.

I like to decorate the tops for kicks, too. For these I cut out teeny little dough hearts and placed one on top of each of the hand pies.

Now in a small bowl, whisk together the egg and about one tablespoon of water. Brush the tops of the hand pies with the egg wash to give it a nice brown when it’s baking. Sprinkle the tops with a little bit of salt and pepper.

Once you have them all assembled, bake for 12-15 minutes. Let them cool a bit on wire racks, about a minute, you just don’t want steaming hot filling to come out and burn your mouth. Then plate and serve warm.

The kids liked that these were ‘their size’ and of course the Kid devoured the pastry first, while the Baby gutted the pie of all the meat filling. At least they both agreed it was cute and tasty!

I use variations of this for pies, sweet or savory. I like it because I have an aversion to shortening. Yes, everyone knows shortening will give you the best pie crust ever, however I do my best to not use it.

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 sticks (3/4 cups) cold butter, cut into cubes
1 egg
1/3 cup ice water

Now if you are using a food processor, this is how you do it: pulse the flour and salt then add in the butter, and pulse until crumbly. Whisk together the egg and water and in the tube while the processor is running, pour it in and keep pulsing until it is combined.

I have a food processor. I never use it. I’m Amish-like-that, yo. I don’t know, I just prefer to do things by hand. You can do this exactly the same way with a bowl and a pastry cutter and a whole lotta time. It takes time. But at the end you will have arms of steel.

You can use this immediately or wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze it for later.

The Kid is off of school for a whole week. A WEEK?? I never got a week off when I was a kid!! Must. Find. Things. To. Do.

I thought an easy and fun thing to do together would be to make a pie. A S’mores pie. Is your mouth watering? The Kid loves all things marshmallow so why not kick up a bit?

Sure it’s a reach, but the components are there: graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate. I threw this together on the fly this morning and it came out just as I had hoped. Believe it or not, the bittersweet chocolate cuts the sweet – but boy is it rich…n the best possible way.

ingredients:
Graham Cracker Pie crust (see recipe here)
20 large marshmallows
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
Pinch of salt
1 Teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 cup mini marshmallows

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 powdered sugar

Prep your graham cracker crust and set aside. Get a small sous chef to count out 20 marshmallows. Tell him it’s a FUN game. That’s how you get things done.

In a double boiler (witness my janky do it yourself version) heat the marshmallows till they get a little melty. Add the chocolate, then the cream. until it’s all combined. Keep stirring, it may take a while.

Note: Scharffenberger is king of chocolate. You won’t find a richer, smoother chocolate to work with. This 6 ounce bar melts down to a little bit of heaven and really makes all the difference in flavor.

Once everything is melted, add the salt and the vanilla. Let cool for a few minutes.

In the bottom of the pie crust sprinkle around the marshmallows. (Note: the Kid helped and I just let him do what he wanted, so we just mixed them in instead.) On top of the marshmallows and pie crust, pour the chocolate mixture, then put in the fridge to set.

When you are ready to serve, whip the heavy cream with the powdered sugar and serve with the pie. So good it will make you cry.

This is basically the same thing as the Nilla Wafer pie crust, but you get the idea.

ingredients:
approx. 25 graham crackers (you’re trying to get about 1-1/2 cups or so)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1-1/2 Tablespoons sugar

In a sealed plastic freezer bag, bash, beat, pulverize the graham crackers.

Get a small child to do the dirty work and combine the crumbs with the melted butter and the sugar – then press into your pie pan.

Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes, let cool before you use it.

Just like last year, the Lemon Fairy left a gigantor bag of lemons on my porch. And FINALLY we’ve come to the end of Lemon Week!
____________________

This dessert is so light you’ll want to eat the whole pie, but don’t fool yourself, it’s chock full of ice cream and whipped cream, aka two of the most fattening fabulous things in the world. But the secret is the crust. I had leftover Nilla Wafers lying around and didn’t want to waste them. Thank goodness, it sent this pie over the top! You just may find yourself eating it straight out of pie plate like I did. Ahem. I’m classy.

ingredients:
1 (9 inch) nilla wafer pie crust (see recipe)
3 cups vanilla ice cream, softened
1/2 cup lemon sugar (you can just white sugar if you don’t have lemon)
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons powdered sugar

Prep your pie crust, set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, water, lemon zest and lemon juice. Fold in the ice cream, make sure it’s softened, you’re job will be easier!

In a mixing bowl whip the heavy cream with the powdered sugar until soft peaks form. PAY ATTENTION: You will only use HALF of this. Fold HALF into the ice cream mixture and pour into the pie crust. Place in the freezer until set!

NOW use the other half of the whipped cream to dollop on top of the pie before you serve! And come on, serve it on a clean plate, let’s be civilized here!

I often have leftover Nilla Wafers lying around, and while I’ve made cupcakes out of them, the obvious thing to do would be to make pie crust!

ingredients:
approx. 36 Nilla wafers
1/4 cup butter, melted
1-1/2 Tablespoons sugar

In a sealed plastic freezer bag, bash the heck out of the vanilla wafers. Or use a food processor. Whatever works. Combine the crumbs with the melted butter and the sugar – then press into your pie pan.

As you can tell from my picture I got super lazy and did not crush them that fine.

Now you can bake this or not, depending on how lazy you are. Use it as is, or to make it REALLY NICE, bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool before you use it.

The concept of these is ever so cute. However the ratio of pie (crust) to filling is a tough one. There doesn’t seem to be enough filling to give you a good ol’ chomp. However you can’t argue with how adorable these are…

ingredients:
pie dough
pie filling (I used cherry)
egg white
large sugar sprinkles
sticks

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll our your pie dough on a floured surface. I used a heart cutter, but a round one will do just as well and of course, will look more pie like.

You’ll need to cut out two for each pie, one for the bottom crust, and one for the top.

Lay a stick in the center of your cut out. I tried both popsicle and lollipop. While the white skinny lollipops were cute, the popsicle stick proved to be much more sturdy. Using a teaspoon fill the pie center on top of the stick. Be very careful, if your filling is liquid, it will run, although oozing hearts maybe what you are looking for, who knows.

Carefully lay the second cut out on top, squeezing the edges to close. Using another stick, go around the edges to seal even more, and to give a cute little pressed look to the edges.

Wash the tops of the pies with egg white (this will brown it) and then sprinkle generously with large sugar crystals. Bake for 15+ minutes depending on your oven and how brown you want your pies. Cool on a wire rack.

You can even bag and seal them to give them as little gifts.