Getting to Know Me and Dinner #1 Chicken Asparagus Roll- ups

So, I'm going to take a few lines to introduce myself. I'm Stephanie and an elementary education major at IUP. I'm graduating in about 5 weeks and I'm planning to marry the man of my dreams in 441 days. If it wasn't for the fact that I've always dreamed of being a teacher and the current economy requires both partners in a marriage to work in order to pay the bills, I would be a housewife. Now I know I can still do all of the things being a housewife entails while holding a job. . . except there's only one problem. 

I can't cook!

Well maybe saying can't is going a bit far...but I definitely have my fair share of issues. In the time since Honeybear and I moved in together last June I have only cooked a handful of meals, where he has cooked quite a few. Of my handful I managed to mess up the simplest of things. On more than one occasion, I managed to let the spaghetti sauce not only start to boil, but burn to a crisp at the bottom of the pot. At this point, I ended up dumping the sauce in the trash and calling honeybear to pick up extra sauce or take out on the way home. 

Now this isn't much different from what I grew up with as a child. I remember Dad yelling to the kitchen, "don't set the box on fire" and the saying "if the box didn't catch on fire dinner was a success." Now all this is fine and dandy, obviously I turned out alright. I didn't starve or anything, but only cooking from boxes and still managing to burn things really doesn't play into my picture perfect housewife idea. 

So, I'm setting a goal that  by the time I'm a MRS. I will  be able to cook. 

With this as my goal, my pinterest recipe board is cluttered with tons of interesting recipes. The desserts I'm not so worried about, I've always been pretty decent at baking, but the dinners that's my real goal. Now Honeybear says if I can follow directions to bake I can follow directions to cook. So, here we go. I'm trying it out. 

Last night, Honeybear and I sat down in front of my pinterest and picked out a recipe for me to try for dinner tonight. I was pretty nervous, especially since I knew Honeybear would be working till 5 and I wanted to have dinner on the table when he got home. . . this meant no help when I panic and thing dinner will be a disaster. Together we picked Chicken Asparagus Roll-ups, pinned from allrecipes.com.  However, right away both of us decided there was no way we would eat it with the mustard. So not only did I sent the standard high to make dinner by myself, I now was making a dinner where I'd have to do something different from the recipe. What was I thinking?!

I decided that in place of using the sauce with the mustard to hold on the panko crumbs, I would just use an egg wash, and for a little extra taste I would top it with a Bearnaise sauce. So, this afternoon I set off to the store to pick up everything I needed. With my table covered  in ingredients I was ready to begin. 

Chicken

4 chicken breast halves (I used tenders) 

16 spears of asparagus

6 slices of provolone

4 slices of prosciutto

1 cup panko bread crumbs

1 egg

Sauce

1 pack McCormick's Bearnaise Sauce mix

1 cup milk

1/2 stick of butter

Rice

So I was a little intimidated looking at all of these things on the table. I had no idea if I was going to get everything done. So I started with preheating the oven and taking some to think through the steps. 

With the oven at 425 degrees and the the pain greased it was time to begin. 

I started by putting the 16 spears of asparagus on a microwave safe tray and microwaving them for a minute on high. I was a little confused as to why I was pre-cooking the asparagus, but this was called for in the original recipe. 

Once the asparagus was done I put 4 of the chicken tenders  into a freezer bag to tenderize them. Now, the recipe calls for using a meat tenderizer. I didn't have one so I used the next best thing... a hammer. With the hammer, I gently beat the chicken through the bag until it was about 1/4 inch thick. 

After this, I took the pieces of chicken out one by one, placed them on a plate and layered the provolone,prosciutto, and finally the asparagus. I put down one slice of provolone, then one slice of prosciutto, and another half slice of provolone. After this, I placed four asparagus spears on top and rolled the chicken around the asparagus. 

Once it was rolled, I placed the roll ups in the pan seam side down. I then used a basting brush to cover the tops and sides of the chicken with egg wash, and then sprinkled Panko crumbs on top. At this point there was nothing more I could do with the chicken, but put it in the oven for 25 minutes and wait. 

In the meantime I started the sauce which was very simple. I melted the butter, then stirred in the milk and mix stirring often until it began to boil. At this point it was reduced to a simmer and stirred every so often until it became thick, this took about one minute. 

While I was making the sauce, which finished, just as the timer for the chicken went off I started a bag of success rice. Of course, this is what threw off my timing, as the water seemed to take forever to boil. 

Finally, once the rice was done I was able to plate my final product. I made a bed of rice, placed a roll up on the rice, and topped with the Bernaise sauce. It didn't look half bad if I may say so myself. 

And what you've all been dying to know....is it a success or did she fail miserably? It was a SUCCESS! 

There were only two issues. First, the tips of the asparagus were a little too done, which was easy to leave on the plate. And the second wasn't even a major issue, Honeybear just mentioned that maybe next time I should add a little more prosciutto. 

Not a bad start to my year of cooking through pinterest.