Chicken Cutlets with Pecan Sauce

If there's one thing I love, it's pecans.  I like them in desserts, in salads, or, in this case, toasted in butter and on top of chicken.  Plus, I am always looking for recipes that are yummy and easily adapted to be GF.  For this one, I will give you the whole recipe (for gluten lovers ha), but for my GF adaptation...I just left out the flour and the step that said "dredge in flour."  And it was still super yummy.  This one is from the cookbook my mom gave me for Christmas, America's Best Recipes: Comfort Food.  In the picture, they serve this with one of those vegetable blends that have zucchini in them...but that is not comfort food to me and mine.  That could actually incite a rebellion.  So we had these with good old green beans from a can.  There's something about them that we just love.  And we had rice, too, with some of the sauce drizzled on top.  Yumm-o.

The picture doesn't look as yummy as it was.  But it was good.

Chicken Cutlets with Pecan Sauce
½ cup chopped pecans
¼ cup butter, divided
4 chicken cutlets (about 1 1/4 lbs)
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp olive oil
½ cup chicken broth
1 tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp dried thyme

Heat pecans and 2 tbsp butter in large nonstick skillet over med heat, stirring often, for 2-3 minutes or until nuts are toasted and fragrant.  Remove from skillet.

Sprinkle chicken with salt & pepper.  Dredge in flour.

Cook chicken in hot oil in skillet over medium heat 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown and cooked through.  Transfer to a serving platter and top with pecans; keep warm.

Add chicken broth to skillet and cook 2 minutes, stirring to loosen brown bits.  Add brown sugar and thyme, and cook 3-4 minutes or until sugar is melted and sauce is slightly thickened.  Add in remaining 2 tbsp butter and heat until melted and combined.  Serve sauce over chicken.

While not everyone enjoyed the pecans, and flicked them off to the side, everyone did like the chicken.  Which I figured would happen, because I have one kid that likes pecans as much as I do, and then everyone else that lives here could take them or leave them or flick them.  But this was still a successful recipe, and we'll have it again, I'm sure.  The only thing that would have made this meal more "comforting," at least to our family, is to have it with mashed potatoes instead of rice...next time.....