Buffalo chicken lettuce cups

Along with my other Chinese food loves (that I talked about here), chicken lettuce cups are my favorite appetizer at Chinese and Thai restaurants by far.  They're just so delicious.  And I was very intrigued by the idea of a lettuce leaf as a dish/wrap/whatever it is.  Coming across a recipe that used a crock pot (my favorite kitchen gadget of late) AND involved that silly lettuce cup concept sounded like something fun to try!

My only concern was that I wouldn't like the buffalo nature of the "buffalo chicken lettuce cups."  I really enjoy spicy food and like the flavors that it brings, but often find buffalo-flavored things to be unnecessarily spicy without much flavor.  To my delight, this chicken was exactly what I wanted, with some spice and yet not too buffalo-y.

The one thing about this that made me sad was that I have no idea how the restaurants have such perfect lettuce leaves to use as lettuce cups.  Mom suggested that I need a left-handed head of lettuce, but I tried that, too, with no luck.  I'm just resigned to believing that my lettuce will never be the right shape, but these were so delicious I quickly got over it.

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 3 celery stalks
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 can (16 oz) chicken broth
• 1/2 cup buffalo sauce (or hot cayenne pepper sauce)
• large lettuce leaves
• ranch dressing
• 2 carrots

Directions:

Tiny carrot and celery matchsticks

In a crock pot, combine chicken, onions, one celery stalk (I diced it first, but you can put it in whole), garlic, and broth.  If chicken isn't covered, add water to cover the chicken.  Cover and cook on high 4 hours.

Remove chicken from crock pot.  Reserve 1/2 cup broth and discard the rest.

Shred the chicken with two forks.  Return to crock pot with the 1/2 cup reserved broth and the buffalo sauce.  Cook on high 30 minutes.

To prepare lettuce cups:  Cut other 2 celery stalks and carrots into 2-inch matchsticks.  Place buffalo chicken in each leaf, top with dressing, carrots, and celery.  Wrap up, prepare to get messy hands, and enjoy!

Adapted from Skinny Taste