How To's-day!

Hi Friends!

This Tuesday's Talent is going to be a little blend of talents (J's, not mine) and food (just pretend it's Saturday again!). See, one of my regular blog-haunts is The Lettered Cottage. Layla and Kevin made the decision a few years ago to give up their 'safe' life and follow their dreams (Layla as a designer and Kevin as a rockstar). The blog chronicles the story of their home and new life (and gives me hope that J will someday become handy a la Kevin!), and I glean so much inspiration from them, both in regard to our home and my own step off the beaten career path.

So anyway, last week they posted an idea for a How To's-day linky party to take place on the last Tuesday of the month (get it? To'sday? Tuesday? Ha!). I love this blog so much, I desperately wanted to participate (To be noticed by Layla? Maybe... To be a part of their community? Definitely.). I jotted a note on my to-d0 list, and I've thought about it daily ever since, sure that a tutorial for something would come to mind. It didn't. The best I came up with was my post from back in 2009 about a variety of Valentine's crafts, none of which contain any 'how to' about them (unless you count "used a skewer to make holes while they were still warm") and besides, Valetines crafts are so last week.

And now here it is, almost Tuesday, and I've got scant little to work with, except a desire to play along. What's a girl to do? Fall back on her husband's cooking skills, that's what!

Without further ado:
How to make your very own Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Bourbon Pancakes (with homemade whipped cream)!

We'll start with the picture to reel you in:

Step 1: Look up a recipe for a standard pancake mix; add cinnamon to the mix and blend with whatever mixer (hand-, stand-, whisk and a strong arm, whatever) you prefer.
Step 2: Add chocolate. If you have mini-chocolate chips, you can just stir them into the pancake batter. We didn't have any on hand tonight (Oh, didn't I mention this was supper tonight? Yum!), so we chopped a couple cubes of melting chocolate I keep in the freezer.
Step 3: Fry up the pancakes on your griddle or favorite frying pan. I'm sure you could use Pam or another cooking spray to somehow keep this healthy (??), but we just went straight to butter.
Step 4: While you cook the pancakes, make some homemade whipped cream (whipping cream, powdered sugar and a little vanilla for flavoring is our recipe). It helps a lot if you have a stand mixer or a helpful sous chef and a hand mixer to multi-task this step successfully.
Step 5: Take the pancakes off the griddle, top with a hefty spoonfull of whipped cream, top with bourbon caramel sauce (we use Applecreek Orchard, but you can use Google to find something similar or a recipe to make your own) and a sprinkle of sea salt.
Step 6: Go ahead and un-button your pants--you'll need the extra room!

That's it for this attempt at a How To. I do have a couple of house-related How To's in mind for next month, so definitely plan to drop back by next time! (Or any day between now and then! Can you believe we're officially one-seventh of the way through the every day blogging challenge?!)