My wife subscribes to Martha Stewart magazine and yesterday she got a Reader's Digest-sized recipe magazine, but filled with simple recipes that can be made without grinding your own wheat or growing your own vegetables.

She got all excited about the recipes as she flipped through and decided she wanted to subscribe. The trouble is, we have about 5 specific cookbooks (chicken, Asian, etc.) that don’t get used along with The Joy of Cooking and a couple other 'basics' cookbooks. So I told her that if she made a blueberry crumb top pie she was eyeing, we would sign up.

I didn’t expect her to actually want to make it, but figured this was win/win for me. Either we don't get more cookbooks that line our shelves and collect dust, or I get some blueberry pie.

As it turns out, I got the pie. She decided that she wanted to make it right away, so I found a chicken roll recipe that included tomatoes and asparagus, and we went out to buy the ingredients.

I learned a couple of things while making my chicken rolls.
1. Frozen chicken thawed in a microwave is not suited for pounding flat
2. You can get a tomato that is bigger than you need
3. Chicken cooked on one side doesn't roll well
4. My wife doesn’t believe that I actually read recipes
And finally, those chicken rolls were really good, even if the presentation would have made Martha run screaming from our house.

So, it looks like I am going to be having more adventures in cooking. I think I might try the cantaloupe and mozzarella salad to try and beat the heat.