Aaron and Sarah's 4th Annual Pie-Off!

A few years ago, Sarah and hit upon the best unimportant idea that has been thought up in Minnesota in at least twenty years.  We would make pie, invite friends to make pies, and then have a pie "contest" necessitating that we eat lots of pie.  We'd have silly categories that wouldn't remotely be like "best of show".  Essentially, the idea was sanctioned gluttony.  It went over well with perhaps eight pies the first year and all in attendance agreeing that we need to do it again.

So do it again we did, and we've continued doing it again for three more years.  This year's pie-off had sixteen pies and probably 25-ish people in attendance.  Our categories were:  "Baby it's cold outside," "What's in there?," "First date," and "Don't stop 'til you get enough."  The format is easy enough to understand.  Walk around, visit with friends while stuffing your face, and then voting on which pies best fit the categories.

Below are pictures of the pies that were brought to this year's Pie-Off.

My sister's pie.  Well done, Molly.

One of my two pies.  This is out of the cook book, and a recipe I reviewed earlier.

Sarah's pie.  I wasn't upset that there was a little left to bring home.

My second experimental pie.  Sarah came up with the idea for chai whipped cream.  Great idea!  Successful pie.

Jim's pie with probably the prettiest crust of the day.

The candy eyes on the top of this pie were a hit.  This was our friend Sean's son's pie.  Sadly, I don't remember what the filling was.

Anu's pie.  I was also happy to bring leftovers of this one home.  The chocolate layer on the crust made the pie.

Karin's sweet kids and her two nearly as sweet ice cream pies.

I feel like I may have missed a couple pie pictures.  I wish I could remember for sure.

And lastly, our winners.  They were:

Winner for "Baby, it's cold outside" was Melia's cheeseburger pie.  Sriracha was great with this.

Winner for "Whats in there?" was Sean's daughter Emmie's piecaken.  Yes, there's a pie inside that cake.

Winner for "Don't stop 'til you get enough" was Eliza's sweet potato pie.  Delicious!

Unfortunately, I must not have gotten a picture of Ed's boosey, and fantastic pecan pie.  He won in the "First date" category.  If anybody has a picture of his pie, feel free to send it to me 'cause I'd like to put it up here.

Should have taken more pictures.  Oh well.  Here are some of our not-quite-stuffed-yet friends.

I accidentally took a video instead of some pictures.  It's a little random, but why not let you see.

Lastly, what was probably the cutest moment of the afternoon was Thomas making a friend.

Awwwww

Ultimately the real winners were all of us 'cause we got the opportunity to eat so many wonderful pies.  A big thank you to everyone who attended, and we're looking forward to next year!