V-day on a budget. Who has some recipe ideas??

CRoswell · 02-04-2009, 10:08 AM

With V-day coming up and me being low on cash I've got a romantic night planned for myself and my lady.

I'm looking for a recipe that looks impressive that I can make. Something with chicken breast. Pasta or rice or whatever. As long as it is somewhat healthy and tasty I can work with it.

She doesn't like mushrooms or asparagus.

I've been trolling some healthy recipe sites and so far all I've found are casseroles. For some reason a pile of casserole on a plate just doesn't strike me as romantic.

missjane · 02-04-2009, 11:32 AM

How about Chicken Piccata? Here's a recipe from Giada Delaurentis. The only thing I would add here is to pound out the chicken breasts to make them the same thickness. You could serve with rice, pasta, potatoe...whatever. A nice salad and a bottle of wine. And, maybe splurge on a decadent dessert that you could purchase at a bakery.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/g...pe2/index.html

mpipes · 02-04-2009, 01:06 PM

Nah don't even splurge on dessert, just make it pretty.

You can cook down fresh strawberries until they thicken into a sauce, you can add sugar or don't if you don't want the calories. Your average store-bought shortcake is only ~100kcal or so. Slice up some of the other strawberries, grab some whipped cream, put it all together and you have a dessert that looks like this:

CRoswell · 02-04-2009, 01:10 PM

Looks great! Thanks to both of you. :-)

I had to look up what a caper was, but I think I can make that work. Anyone else want to weigh in with other ideas?

stingo · 02-04-2009, 04:26 PM

Shrimp served on a bed of lettuce with the cocktail sauce (or a suitable mustard) served in the center. You can place the shrimp facing each other, suggesting a heart. From here, any number of options present themselves... broiled, pan-seared, baked, stuffed salmon or ahi tuna steaks would be my choice, but chicken breasts presented on a brown rice pilaf (optionally shaped into a heart) surrounded by steamed artichoke hearts works. For dessert, if you have a double boiler available (or are able to MacGyver one), melting some chocolate for do it yourself smores might be an unusual treat. Or, a variation on what's been suggested already - sliced strawberries and cream.