Here is Penelope's fall bento.

Top tier: Turkey and cheese pumpkin sandwich, Cheetos

Bottom tier: Oatmeal and raisin cookie, 2 Halloween chocolates and olives.


Yesterday we carved pumpkins and roasted pumpkin seeds with the grandparents.

Happy Fall! Now if only the weather would start acting like it!

In case you were wondering, this is what my family looks like...

What do you call a puffy quesadilla? A Puffy-dilla or a Chicken Puff


Chicken Puff

Uncooked flour tortillas
2 Boneless skinless chicken breasts boiled and shredded
1 Small tomato chopped
1 Serrano pepper chopped
3-4 Green onions chopped
1/2 Can of Extra large black olives sliced
Salt & Pepper
Shredded cheddar cheese
Oil for frying

First off, I discovered an easy way to shred hot chicken without playing hot potato with it. Is there nothing my KitchenAid can't do?!







Season filling with salt & pepper. Take your raw flour tortillas ( I use the kind you buy at Costco) and slice in half. Fill the middle of one side with the chicken filling and some cheese. Fold over and wet the edges to stick together. Use a fork to also crimp the edges to keep the filling inside.



2 chicken breasts will make a ton of filling. You can make a bunch of these and freeze them or you can make just enough and use the leftover filling for enchiladas, tacos, or add some mayo to it and you will have a zesty chicken salad sandwich.

Now this is where a normal quesadilla becomes a puff. Apparently when you fry up a raw flour tortilla it will puff and be similar to fry bread, who knew?

Fill a frying pan with oil so that when you place one of these little filled goodies into it the oil covers them about halfway. Make sure your oil is hot but not to hot these will cook up really quick. Flip over once one side is brown, crispy, and puffy and cook the other side. Serve with sour cream.

Penelope's bento today was filled with PB&J sushi, cheddar cheese flowers and crackers. She also had strawberry sauce and two GinnyBakes Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

For the "sushi" take some bread and remove the crusts. Then flatten the bread, spread the peanut butter and jelly and roll up into a log. Slice into rounds. Your kids will be so impressed!

Last year on my birthday Chris surprised me by booking us a room at the Hotel Del Coronado. It wasn't just an ordinary staycation though, no we stayed in the room that is supposed to be haunted by the infamous ghost of Kate Morgan. He even bought me my very own ghost detector.


You can read more about the history of the Hotels resident ghost here. So did we experience anything "ghostly"? Well that depends, if you consider clothes that were hanging in the closet swaying with absolutely no wind present, lights turning off and on by themselves, late night banging and footsteps, ceiling fan spinning while off, and being accosted in your bed by something unseen, ghostly. I will not go in to the part about being accosted but let's just say Chris made us leave the hotel room at six in the morning the next day.



This year on my birthday Chris booked us a room at The Cosmopolitan Hotel in Old Town which is another supposed haunted spot in San Diego. It was even featured on an episode of Ghost Adventures. This time we did not stay in the room that is supposed to be the paranormal hot spot of the hotel but instead stayed in a room down the hall. This hotel is pretty awesome, it is 10 rooms that have been renovated to look like it did back in the 1800's complete with a pull chain toilet. The hotel completely shuts down after 10pm and guests are given a key to enter a locked gate making the experience pretty surreal and the perfect setting for a horror movie. It is also located in Old Town, home of the Whaley House, considered one of the most haunted places in America. You can read more about the history here. Old Town also is home of the oldest cemetery in San Diego, El Campo Santo Cemetary, and much of Old Town has actually taken over the once larger cemetery.

Our tour guide was awesome, he did a great job at telling us the history about all the places we visited while being entertaining and I thought funny. Our first stop was the above mentioned Whaley House.


We then hopped aboard the ghost bus and headed to Villa Montezuma.


This Victorian Mansion is unfortunately currently closed to the public and looks quite different with a bunch of scaffolding and fences warning you to keep out. The history behind this mansion is pretty creepy and interesting though. You can research it online if you like.


From what our tour guide told us there is a possibility that this home may open up again someday soon and allow public tours. Could that be a ghostly orb I caught on camera?

We then headed to the Gaslamp District of San Diego alive with bars and restaurants in what was once the red light district of San Diego. You can read the history on that here. While there we entered the Horton Grand Hotel which is another hotel that is supposed to haunted. You can read some of the theories behind that here.

A short walk later we ventured into the William Heath Davis house which is actually a museum that is open daily to the public and is said to be so haunted that many professional "ghost hunters" investigate regularly. We were told that Haunted San Diego Tour was the only tour that had nighttime access to the museum and in the evening when the last person locks up they make sure to turn down all the lights, rope up all areas where guests are not welcome and lock all doors that are not meant to be walked through. Which was a little strange because when we walked in several of the ropes were not up, a light in the hallway was on and a door that can only be accessed from one side was wide open. This place really gave me the creeps especially after hearing the history of a mass amount of dead bodies or ash filled urns to be exact that were found on the property. Eek! I took several pictures in this place that captured what some people may be believe to be "ghostly orbs".


The rest of our tour was also given a Ghost Meter and we were set to tour the home on our own. Here is my meter spiking and beeping erratically informing us of some visitors.


After this we headed back on to bus and made our way to El Camp Santo Cemetary,


where we learned the history of some of the residents. We also learned that although it contains about 400 grave sites this is only a fraction of what it was in the 1800's. This cemetery once included the area that is now the commercial district of Old Town. Many paved areas/buildings located near or around the cemetery have graves underneath them, that can't be good...

This was our final destination and the place we finally got proof that, yes people, ghosts do exist.

The weekend of my birthday we went over to my parents house and had a party celebrating not only my birthday but also my stepdads and my twin nieces. We grilled up some ribs, steak and hotdogs and ate some sides including this Mexicorn Pasta Salad I made that everyone loved.


Mexicorn Pasta Salad

1 lb. cooked Rotini pasta ( I used Dreamfields low carb pasta)
3 cups of roasted corn kernels. You can first roast the corn ears over the grill with a little olive oil and then scrape the kernels off. 3 to 4 corn ears should produce 3 cups of kernels.
Mayonnaise
Cotija cheese
Handful of chopped cilantro
About 4 green onions chopped
Tajin
Lime Juice
Salt & pepper to taste

Mix everything together and enjoy. You can use as much mayo and cotija as you like. Same goes with the Tajin and lime juice. Tajin can usually be purchased in the Hispanic aisle at your local supermarket.

It is a combination of chilies, lime and salt and is used on everything from fruit to beverages.

This Mexicorn Pasta Salad is made like you would make a Mexican street corn with the addition of pasta.