We had an unusually small game night last week, so it was time for a smaller, more time consuming dessert! I was in the mood for something summer, so we did these strawberry hand pies, and paired them with a longer, crunchy euro I’d been wanting to play with these two friends. The pies were…more or less successful, haha. Read on to find out how the they went!

At a Glance…

The Sweet Pies

I’m a huge fan of anything inside dough, but also, making things that involve dough takes a little more time than I often want to spend. Additionally, this would be my first time making hand pies gluten free (happy Celiac Awareness Month btw!), and it was time I made the attempt for my celiac friends and sister-in-law. Amazingly, these pies from The Banana Diaries are not only gluten free and nut free (and of course vegan), they are also sugar free! 😱 Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of sugar, haha, but to be able to make delicious hand pies with just the sweetness of the strawberries is also pretty great. I did add the optional maple syrup to mine, but you totally don’t have to. These are definitely more natural tasting rather than super sweet and syrupy. Now the recipe does say to make the dough in a blender to mix in the butter. While this may have seemed like a good idea at the time, I did end up dirtying my blender for no reason. By the time I doubled the recipe (I wanted leftover hand pies!), it was way too much dough for the blender. I ended up mixing it by hand, which was fine. I’m no professional baker or food nutritionist, so I don’t really know what chilling dough does to it, but I did it anyway! I ended up getting enough dough to make a few more pies than it called for, and even than the filling was…*a lot* for my little circles of dough, lol, and they had a hard time closing and staying closed. That’s ok! Rustic is still delicious. And boy were they delicious! I paired them with some (vegan) vanilla ice cream, so they didn’t end up being held in a hand. The leftovers were though!

The Cow Pies

Great Western Trail is honestly not my favorite of our euros, both for theme and mechanics, but Jon likes it and I thought one of our friends who likes deck building should try it. It’s all about rustling cattle to…take them on vacation…to Kansas City. 🫠Don’t think too much about it. The interesting thing is, you do it over and over again, going from the start back to Kansas City, each time trying to get more cows, cowboys, builders, conductors, and money. You want to have the right cows in your hand at the right time to do the actions best, but also have the best cow hand by the time you get to Kansas City each time (aka high numbers and no duplicates). It feels a little samey at times, but I do see how you build up a better and better deck slowly, and the combination of mechanisms is pretty unique. If you’re a fan of deck building, give it a try! I have yet to try the new versions (El Paso, New Zealand, Argentina), but have heard good things!

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game is a ridiculously long title for a simple card game, haha. It is fun in that there aren’t that many cooperative trick taking games, and at the time we didn’t own any Lord of the Rings games (despite enjoying the franchise). We got this to take on our anniversary trip last year and have slowly been working our way through the different scenarios. It is fun to see how they incorporate the different characters and story line into the mission. If you like The Crew, trick taking, and/or Lord of the Rings, this is a simple but fun one with lots of variability and a great two player experience. I still need to see how the follow-up is and if it’s worth adding to the collection. The more the Merry-ier, right? 😂

Want to buy these games? Check out your friendly local game store (FLGS), Amazon [here], or get a first-order discount at Board Game bliss [here].

Or get Great Western Trail on Amazon or LOTR Trick Taking on Amazon or Amazon.ca.