Recipe: Almond Chicken Cups, Cornbread Stuffing, and Cornbread Pecan Stuffing for Lisa

Lisa: You must adapt the chicken cups recipe to stuff with the Pecan Stuffing. Happy New Year.

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ALMOND CHICKEN CUPS
Source: Favorite Brand Name Recipes
Makes 12 chicken cups

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
2/3 cup prepared sweet-and-sour sauce
1/2 cup chopped almonds
2 tablespoons soy sauce
6 (6- or 7-inch) flour tortillas

Preheat oven to 400 F. Heat oil in small skillet over medium heat until hot. Add bell pepper and onion. Cook and stir 3 minutes or until crisp-tender.

Combine vegetable mixture, chicken, sweet-and-sour sauce, almonds and soy sauce in medium bowl; mix until well blended.

Cut each tortilla in half. Place each half in 2-3/4-inch muffin cup. Fill each with about 1/4 cup chicken mixture.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until tortilla edges are crisp and filling is hot. Remove muffin pan to cooling rack. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

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PECAN STUFFING

1 lb plus pecans (toasted and crushed)
3/4 cup coffee
1/2 tsp black pepper
12 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 cup bourbon (jack daniels or knob creek)
4 tbsp butter

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Spread your pecans out on a sheet pan. Pop this into the oven for about 10 - 15 minutes, shaking and stirring a few times to insure consistent toasting. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Put your brown sugar, butter, and black pepper in a stock pot over medium high heat, and allow to start carmelizing. You don't really need to whisk it at this point, save to help the butter to melt, as as the sugar is heated it will start to melt and liquify. After about 5 minutes, you'll want to CAREFULLY pour in your coffee and bourbon. Why carefully? Because the carmelized sugar is incredibly hot, and you could steamburn yourself in doing this if you're not paying attention. But now you are, so it's not a problem. Whisk the coffee, bourbon, and sugar mixture together, and allow to simmer and reduce for about 5 minutes. Whisk fairly often.

While that's going on, grumble up the pecans in your fists so as to break them down a little bit so they're not whole anymore. Once you've done that, and the 5 minutes of simmering is just about up, add the pecans to the pot, reduce the heat to low, and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes. When that's done, remove from the heat and allow to cool.

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CORNBREAD PECAN STUFFING
Source: casper the ghost

2 small packages Pepperidge Farm cornbread crumbs
1 McCormick turkey seasoning packet (I use the one from a turkey breast bag n season package)
small bag pecan pieces
butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
pecan syrup (I get this on trips through GA, but if you can't find it, just use a regular syrup)
2 1/2 cups chicken broth

Saute veggies in butter until soft. Add to cornbread crumbs. Add rest of ingredients. Stuff whatever you are going to stuff.