This was my Christmas present from my mother:

Tiny pie!

This is just the sort of present I love: slightly ridiculous and very wonderful, and something I would NEVER buy for myself.

I wish I’d made them while my mom and sister were here – especially given that when we went to the store to get the New Year’s ham, Mama turned around and went back when I realized I hadn’t bought pie crust.

(I am a good cook. I have made many complicated and delicious things. I am made very nervous by pie crust and biscuits. [The key is practice.])

But I had it in my mind that the tiny pies were not QUITE so tiny, that they were the size of large pot pies. No:

My hands are not very big! (I wear a 7 1/4 size glove!) (Also you can see that I often don’t wear my wedding ring when I’m at home. Saucy!)

Once I opened it up and saw how small they are, I had to squeak.

Now. I am not much of a dessert eater. Not too long ago, Dingo asked me what my favorite dessert is, and I said, “Another glass of wine.”  So my plan for Tiny Pies is to make them stuffed full of savory things. Preferably vegetables, as one cannot eat too many veg.

For this experiment, I thawed out some beef stew:

That is one batch of Pillsbury pie crust. I re-rolled the leftovers and got six bottoms out of one sheet. Frugal! The directions say to use puff pastry for the tops and not pie crust. I  did it, but I’m skeptical and will experiment and report back.

It took about 3 minutes:

Aren’t they beautiful? They are by far the prettiest pies I’ve ever made.

Here’s the inside:

Kind of blown out (as usual: clearly I need to lean to modify the flash on my camera), but YUM. Totally delicious!

NOTE:

I call this Heretical Beef Stew. Late in the summer, I was up in the guest room puttering around in my craft supplies when the doorbell rang. After much running up and down the stairs and in and out the door, Dingo Dingo ended up with A Giant Box of Beef. Part of the Giant Box was a  big pile of bacon-wrapped filet mignons.

I think filet mignon is stupid. It’s mushy and too thick to easily cook to proper medium rare. And bacon wrapped! Geez louise! You want the bacon to be done enough to not be greasy rubber but still have the steaks not be overcooked. Who needs that kind of trouble? I took the bacon off, chopped up the filet, and used them both to make beef stew. Tremendous. But heretical.