Lessons in chicken

I make this goat's cheese and pesto stuffed chicken quite a lot.  Older snarfling loves it, she's been a bit of a goat's cheese fiend since she was tiny.  I've decided to present it as something of a step-by-step guide, so you can make it too.  I'm nice like that.

Goat's Cheese and Pesto Chicken

Serves 4, easy to halve quantities for 2

4 chicken breasts, freedom food or free range, pleaseandthankyou.
4 tsp red pesto
pack of soft goat's cheese
8 rashers of good quality smoked bacon

Take your chicken breast and flip it over, moving the 'butterfly' bit out of the way.

Take a sharp knife and cut a deep slash (but NOT all the way through!) where the butterfly bit meets the main chicken breast.  So -

Open it out to make a pocket -

Pop in a teaspoonful of the pesto (tip - decant your pesto into a little dish before using in this recipe, then if your spoon touches the raw chicken, you aren't transferring bacteria back into the jar to breed.  Always thinking of you, folks.)

Then wodge in a teaspoonful of the goat's cheese -

Close up your pocket as best you can and flip your butterfly bit back over the top, thus -

Wrap two rashers of bacon around the chicken, using the widest medallion bit over the opening of the pocket to cover it up -

Now wrap your chicken breast firmly in foil, and repeat!

Bake them in a 180 degree oven for about 20 minutes.  If you're making the roasted baby potatoes and carrots that I served with this, microwave your veg for 5 minutes whilst you heat a little oil in a roasting pan, pop the veg in for ten minutes, then put the chicken in and roast all together for another 20-25 minutes (25 if you have especially large or thick chicken breasts).

All done-

You can crisp the bacon under a hot grill for a few minutes if you like, but I had small snarfling screaming at me, so dispensed with that step!

Ready to eat -