Pie Night!

I grew up in a family where we had birthday pies more often than birthday cakes...after all, pie is a whole lot better than cake, don't you think?!
When we were engaged, Hubby and I were invited to his neighbor's home for pie night. We know a good idea when we see one, so we latched on to the idea and have held annual pie nights of our own ever since. The 5th Annual Brighton Family Pie Night was last night.

I took "Chocolate Barbarian Pie" and a savory pie,
and yup, I've posted both of the recipes for you on the recipe blog...
I'm going to be posting pies there all month, so check back in!!

So, what is Pie Night you may ask? Good question! Go ahead and take notes now, because as soon as you finish reading this you're probably going to run off and start a pie night tradition of your own.
1--everybody brings a pie (and server). (As hosts, we provide plates, forks, and whipped cream along with a pie or two.)
2--there are many many kinds of pie
3--everybody pigs out on lots and lots and lots of pie!

The first year we did it it was a small affair, with only 5 pies (two made by me). The next year it grew, and our third year had 36 people crammed in our little house. Then we moved to Pelican, and had to start over...however this is a friendly little town, and we had over a dozen attendees last year...now that the locals have had enough time to get to know us, this year was a little bigger. Last night we had 22 people and 17 pies! (It was the year of pumpkin pie--there were 6 pumpkin pies!) I think this years winner as fanciest pie was DS's Pear-Almond Creme Tart with Cranberry Flakes... although I personally also really love the Upside-down Pumpkin Pie that CS makes (she said she hates making crust, so she makes the pumpkin pie filling, then puts it in a casserole dish and does a nut-crumb topping on it!)


A couple of little notes if you want to host a Pie Night of your own:

• Put out a couple of pitchers of ice water! With all the rich pie, people tend to need a drink!
• Be sure to remind people to bring a server with their pie, otherwise you might have 8 pies and 1 server...that's awkward!
• Use index cards or something to put labels in front of each pie, so that people can tell what each one is when they go to choose their slices...for example, last night we had a plain chocolate and a chocolate-mocha which looked almost identical, but some people like mocha and some don't, so it's good to have labels!