Plates of Penrose: Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese

This was a quick and easy 20 minute weeknight dinner!  We are big buffalo chicken fans so I'm always trying to think of different ways to prepare it.  Tonight, we went with:

Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese

Ingredients:
--Chicken (I used tenderloins but you could also use breasts)
--Hot sauce
--Dry Ranch seasoning
--Chili Powder
--Onion Powder
--Macaroni noodles
--Velveeta Cheese package

Directions:
*If you are able, marinate your chicken in some chili powder & dry ranch seasoning overnight. No worries if you don't have time for that though!

On your stovetop, put cut-up chicken in a pan and season with chili powder, onion powder, and dry ranch seasoning.  A light dusting of all three is enough, just to cover the tops :)  Mix together with some hot sauce and continue cooking.  Boil your water in a separate pan and then add in macaroni noodles.  Once macaroni is cooked, drain water then put back on the stovetop over medium heat with half of a Velveeta cheese package, some more hot sauce (to taste) and a little bit more dry ranch.  Combine your chicken in and mix all together, once cheese is melted into a nice sauce, lower heat.  Enjoy!  Serve with some carrot or celery sticks, or throw a steamer bag of veggies in your microwave for a nice, balanced meal!

Of course, if you like onion and celery you could also sauté them with the chicken then throw them into the mac & cheese, or get fancy and top it off with some bleu cheese crumbles.

Projects of Penrose: Building our House

Here she is!  We chose a plan that is just over 2900 sqft, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom with bonus room on a cul-de-sac lot.  We are so in love with the plan! It is just so spacious and has so much storage, which was one of the biggest complaints we had in our last home [there wasn't even a linen closet!].  I also now have an eat-in kitchen, mudroom, and a full laundry room with folding table! Cannnnnn I get an Amen :)  If you ever visited our first house, you know about the sad little corner fireplace that the previous owners installed...well now we will have a real fireplace! I am so excited, especially because they are telling us that we will close around mid-October so we will be able to celebrate this Christmas in the new house!

To update you on the timeline so far...we listed AND sold our house on April 1st! Crazy day. We signed the contract for this lot a couple days before that, and then made all of our upgrade & finish selections on May 18th.  We had our pre-construction meeting on June 24th and in the last week they have cranked out framing of the 1st floor and almost all of the 2nd floor.  I love being close by to check on the progress! 

For the exterior finishes, it will be two-toned siding...The horizontal siding is a lighter tan and the accent vertical siding on the 2nd floor (where the bonus room is) will be taupe.  The trim and garage door are ivory.  The brick accent on the columns is a dark red/charcoal mix, which I think will look great against the charcoal gray door & shutters!

A New Address.

A new blog!  Welcome.  My old blog, Living on Love really started to fall by the way-side as I've adjusted to the busy life of a working mom.  It has pretty much only been growth updates on Ryleigh for the past year, and I want to get back into blogging more regularly.  I felt like a new blog would be a good, fresh start to get me back into the swing of things!

What is Practically Penrose?  Well, our life is full of fresh starts, it seems.  If you know us, you know we are currently building our second home [well, 4th home if you count our two apartments :)] and our new street name is Penrose.  Has a pretty ring to it, huh?  So more literally, as the construction process moves forward I feel like we are "practically there"...And also "practically" because let's face it, in the life of a working mother to a toddler, and wife to a busy entrepreneur, I have to be pretty practical.  That has a few meanings about what you can expect to see here on this blog.  Recipes for practical week-night dinners, reasonable solutions for decorating projects, mommy-moment experiences, ways to be more organized...the list goes on.

You will also get to see construction updates for our new home on Penrose! Probably the most exciting part of this for me, currently. And because I'm always up for catchy names, I'll try to keep up some different segments:

Pinning for Penrose  [house pin-spiration decor ideas]

Plates of Penrose [recipes]

Pages at Penrose [book reviews & link-ups]

Projects of Penrose [construction updates & house projects]

Parenting Penrose [lots about Ryleigh]

Pets of Penrose [updates on the dogs, because I'm sure we are in for some fun adjustments through the move...]


So, there you have it. I hope you'll be excited to follow along with us on this new adventure :)