I'll admit; I'm a cheap date!

Take a chicken breast per person, cut almost in half and flatten out, cover in a plastic bag and then gently use a rolling pin as a mallet to flatten it out even further.

 Our supper was not cheap! It shouldn't have been. This May marks the fifteen years we've been together and part of the reason that we've just about got enough money together to go for a week's really quite plush holiday. Anything is plush when you can't afford it. We've worked like troopers today. The whole house is clean, all the down stairs floors have been washed, all the windows have been cleaned, so has the car and the drive and paths are all swept and tidy. Careful shopping, after a bit of research has been split between Asda and Lidl this week. Our shopping bill has almost doubled, due to the high protein content and we can't get away without spending around £50 - £60 a week!

We don't eat out, I've given up drinking and Dearly Beloved drinks one bottle of beer a week! Good food keeps us going. I was having a coffee this morning, whilst watching Gino D'Acampo cooking and I've tried to do something similar. He stuffed chicken with minced wild mushroom and other yummy stuff, which I haven't used, but I've used his cooking method.

I used Quark, which I had drained over night to thicken, added a clove of crushed garlic and a two finely chopped shallots, a sprinkle of parsley and mixed together before stuffing the chicken.

 I then, in the financial absence of Parma ham!!! Wrapped each piece in smoky bacon, after firstly cutting off any fat.

 I then tightly wrapped it in cooking paper and formed a kind of Christmas cracker to keep it all together.

 I cooked it in the mini oven for 40 minutes. Check your own oven, every one is different and may need more of less time.

 I then made a dressing to go with the chicken and the salad. I peeled and de-seeded half a cucumber, finely diced it, added a tablespoon of mint sauce (sugar free) to a single portion size of plain fat free yoghurt. I loosened it with lemon juice and then decided, after tasting it, that some dried corriander would liven it up....and it did.

 It certainly tasted better than it looked..

Here's the cooked chicken. The quark in the centre was a bit of a disaster, when yoghurt products are cooked, they tend to seperate and the bottom of the roasting dish was just full of water, but the garlic, parsley and chopped shallots could be tasted in a burst at the centre of the chicken.

Here's the final result! Romantic meal for two. Homemade, frugal, carb free and it was totally delicious!