Random food thoughts for the weekend

Thought y'all might like to see how my last experiment went, the pot pie I previously mentioned. It was a hit with the whole family, so I think this will be one to add to the recipe book!

My first substitution was to add some sliced mushrooms to the mix - about 3/4 cup. 3/4 cup cubed carrots & 2 cubed potatoes.

Fried up the cubed beef & the mushrooms while the carrots & potatoes were boiling away.

I actually found some Bisquick in my pantry, so I didn't do the cornbread topping I planned to - mixed with 1/2 cup milk & 1 egg.

Yet another substitution. Recipe called for 2 cans of beef gravy, which I was SURE I had. Alas, I did not ... so, 2 cans cream of mushroom soup it was!

Mixed together the cooked potatoes, carrots, beef, mushrooms & 2 cans of soup mix, along with 2 beef bullion cubes & salt/pepper.

Ready to go in the oven - 350 for about 30 minutes.

The aftermath.

On a completely unrelated note, a friend just gave me a very cool tip that I am going to try with my teething child. Frozen pancakes! I've had someone mention using frozen waffles to me before, but the pancakes is a new idea to me. I'll let you know how it turns out. But it's gotta taste better than a plastic teething ring, right?! And, I love to make large batches of pancakes and freeze them to pull out when we want a fun breakfast. Thanks to Rachelle for the teething tip and Sarah for the original idea to freeze pancakes!

And one more random thought to round out the day ... Now that the nice weather has finally arrived here in Oregon, I plan to transplant my veggies from my greenhouse to the actual garden. Hopefully, they'll survive the transfer and turn out well.  We already have a bumper crop of pears in our backyard, and it looks like we're going to have quite a lot of blueberries as well. A dear friend has promised to teach me to can this summer, so there will be canned pears, pear butter, and possibly pearsauce (as opposed to applesauce). However, I would LOVE some more ideas of what to do with both the pears and the blueberries. Any creative ideas for things that I can stash away in the freezer to pull out later and dazzle my family with? I welcome them all!