As summer nears and temperatures rise, it's prime grilling season. Whether at home, at a local park, or on the beach, there are BBQs to be lit and people ready to cook up and eat some delicious fare.

But after all of the burgers and brats have been grilled, there's always a need for a sweet treat to top things off, and pies provide the perfect touch to an otherwise smoky and savory meal. Easily portable and good for sharing, pies make the best BBQ desserts. Here are five amazing pies that will sweeten up your next BBQ.

What's your favorite kind of pie to serve with BBQ food?

Image via Jun Seita/Flickr

Chocolate chip cookies are one of the best desserts in the history of desserts as far as I'm concerned, but I always love a twist on the original standby. These brownie chunk cookies provide a perfect one and will become a new staple in your baking after your family devours them.

From Souffle Bombay, they start with a basic cookie recipe, but instead of using chocolate chips, you add chunks of brownie. Brilliant, huh? She offers a delicious recipe to make the brownie part from scratch, but some pre-made brownies from your bakery will save time, and the end result is almost as good.

Hershey Bar Pie sounds amazing enough as it is, but when you make it into little pop-in-your mouth pieces, it becomes an event. These little pies take all of the rich creaminess of a chocolate pie and place it atop a chocolate crust (part of an Oreo). Then they're topped with yummy, buttery, toasted coconut, which makes them irresistible.

From Food Pusher, they're easy to make and only call for five ingredients. They're perfect to take to a gathering this Memorial Day weekend or anytime you want to make a dessert that will impress. 

Everyone, now we have two reasons to celebrate this weekend. They figured out how to fix ketchup! To be exact, scientists have created a bottle that lets the ketchup just slide out -- instead of making you smack the bottom to get those last few glugs out.

Introducing LiquiGlide, a surface coating that sends ketchup along its merry way, out of the plastic or glass bottle and right next to that still-warm pile of French fries.

Oh, one little hitch -- you can't get a LiquiGlide bottle just yet.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! Isn't this cake fun? The recipe below includes a crazy gelatin filling. But of course, the real pizazz is the decoration on top. You could skip the filling and just make a vanilla cake and frosting if you're pressed for time.

If there's ever a time to splurge on berries, this is it. (And hello, strawberry season is finally here.) This flag cake would make a dazzling finale to your Memorial Day cookout. And you know kids would love helping you make (and eat) it.

Did you drink too much last night? Nursing a hangover? Is it too early in the day for me to ask you these questions? Here, have an aspirin and oh by the way: Taco Bell Beefy Nacho Burrito to you, Bright Eyes.

Let me repeat that for you: Beefy Nacho Burrito. Taco Bell just introduced its newest menu item, and it's so obvious that it was created exclusively for drunk/hungover people. For 99 cents you get ground beef, nacho cheese, sour cream, and their new "Queso strips." It's for those times when you're craving nachos but you temporarily lack the manual dexterity to manage the chips and dip, so they've wrapped it all up into a nice, soft flour tortilla diaper for you.

Now what the hell are "Queso strips"?

This New York Times blog post starts out sounding like a joke: A man walks into a Starbucks. He overhears the customer ahead of him order a shocking drink -- "a black guy." A what? A few days go by and this man keeps hearing people order the same drink. "A black guy."

Finally, he asks the barista, "What's a 'black guy'?"

“It’s two shots,” he replied.

My jaw dropped. “You mean, like ...?”

“Yeah,” Frank laughed, miming two blows to his head. “Two shots!”

So you may be thinking, Starbucks is selling a racist coffee drink? Why on God's Green Earth would they do that?!? BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT. This is all just a terrible misunderstanding.

Oh office lunch. Why aren't you more delicious? I try to bring my lunch to work every day. That's because buying lunch in Midtown Manhattan can run you around 10 dollars. I did the math on what that would cost me per month and then I had my memory erased because the number was so horrific. (No, not really, but it's way too much.)

So what to pack for lunch that's not boring? I'll often just pack leftovers from dinner, but on days when there are no leftovers, I draw a blank. And a blank mind first thing in the morning is not going to get you fed a lunchtime. That's why I came up with this handy list of packed lunch ideas.