Chicken Pot Pies and Pear Upside Down Cake

I have been on a pastry experiment kick as I had been trying out several pastry recipes in advance of Thanksgiving this weekend (I offered to make the pumpkin pie but haven't make pastry in years).  While my husband has been a very willing guinea pig, there is only so much pumpkin pie I can make.  So, I found a recipe for chicken pot pie and set about to make a batch of pie pastry using the traditional Tenderflake lard recipe (found here).  I had already done shortening and butter based crusts, but thought I should go back to my childhood and try the recipe that I first learned when baking pies for family holiday dinners (or watching anyways).

I followed most of the instructions for the pot pie, except I used pre-cooked chicken (cut into cubes) and used frozen peas and carrots rather than fresh carrots.  I also cut the amount of liquid to 3 cups of broth and 1 cup of milk.

This was too die for!  I don't know if I could go back to store bought pot pie!

[As an aside, for my pumpkin pies, I decided to use this pastry recipe.]

I also made a cake for the husband.  When we were grocery shopping, he asked if I could make a cake with pears, which he loves.  After some searching, I found a recipe at Kraft.  It called for cranberries, which I omitted in order to ensure that my husband would try the cake rather than run away (he is definitely not a fan).  I also used canned pears rather than fresh.  Otherwise, it was made according to the recipe.

To put it briefly, this has already been asked to be made again (like, he already went and bought the ingredients again).