Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Happy Monday and welcome back from another wonderful weekend!  Hope all of you amazing moms celebrated in style.

After I was spoiled by my traditional Mother's Day breakfast in bed, the kids and I spent Sunday morning at Busy Barns Adventure Farm in Fort Atkinson with some friends.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much they have to do for visitors of all ages.  Before we left home, my kids (8, 10 & 10) had the notion that they were going on behalf of our younger friend, but that certainly wasn't the case once we got there.  They were all having a blast and our 2 hour window flew right by, definitely could have stayed longer.

If you haven't been there yet, I highly recommend adding it to your list of family fun outings.

From Busy Barns, we dashed off to sporting events…Ryker had a soccer game (where the players presented flowers to their moms before the game, a very nice touch!) and Landon had a baseball scrimmage.  I was thankful to have Alayna by my side throughout the day.

The weekend kicked off with a girls' night, in honor of a dear friend having her second baby soon, so the best way for me to keep the peace when I have my own fun going on, is to make something delicious for the guys…such that they may ask me to go out more often.  Not likely to happen, just saying'!

So, I wanted to whip up something easy, appealing and guy-approved.

My first thought…bacon.   Never a bad idea to start planning a meal around bacon.  The end result…Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Breasts.  

While I don't think they will be kicking me out of the house any time soon, the meal was met with rave reviews.  I can't even quote Jerry because he may have been a little too excited about it.

The three main ingredients were 8 oz of bacon, 1# of asparagus and 2# of thin sliced chicken breasts.

Started by trimming the asparagus, I generally cut off at least the bottom third of the stalks, that is the part that is the most stringy and least tender.  Toss the asparagus with some olive oil, salt and pepper, to prepare it for being rolled into the chicken breast.

The chicken breasts were laid out flat and just lightly seasoned with some fresh ground pepper and sea salt.

I know the bacon will provide lots of great salty flavor on the outside, but wanted to be sure that the asparagus and inner layers weren't missing out on any of the flavorful action.

To complete, just roll the chicken around the asparagus, then wrap the bacon around and fasten with toothpicks.

I used two half slices of bacon, but in retrospect, I would have kept the bacon whole and perhaps done a short pre-fry on them to add a little more texture to the finished meal.  

The Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Breasts were placed on a parchment paper - lined roasting pan, so that the excess grease from the bacon could drain right through.

Bake the chicken at 400 F for about 20 minutes.  That is just about as fast as you can make something so delicious!

These were just served with some fresh strawberries, but some pasta, rice or corn would have been an appropriate addition to the meal.

RECIPE

Ingredients:

8 oz of bacon
1# of asparagus
2# of thin sliced chicken breasts
Olive oil
Sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

Trim asparagus, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. 
Arrange chicken breasts, sprinkle with salt and pepper, lay asparagus across. 
Roll up chicken breast and wrap bacon around, fastening with toothpicks. 

Bake at 400F for 20 minutes.