Kathy's blonde brownies

KATHY BAILEY’S BLOND BROWNIES
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
1 ½ c. granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Etc. (see below)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 13x9 pan. Melt shortening in saucepan, then remove from heat. Stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla. (Do the sugar FIRST, or you’ll have scrambled eggs in your cookies.) Add the flour, baking powder and “etc.” to the mixture. Bake 30 minutes, cut into squares.

I got this wben I was first married from a book called “How I Feed My Family on $16 a Week.” This recipe got me through raising two girls, 18 months apart, and their various “activities.” The beauty of this is that it can use almost anything you have in the pantry – chocolate chips, raisins, walnuts, thus the “etc.”
Housebound with a sick baby? Snowbound with bored kids? Your third-grader came home Thursday and said he needed a dozen brownies for Friday? Whip up a batch of these, and toss in whatever’s in the cupboard.

These freeze fairly well. They tend to dry out after a couple of days, so best to freeze some if you’re not planning on a crowd.

Variations:
Chocolate chip and walnut.
Plain chocolate chip.
Raisin and walnut.
Plain raisin.
Plain walnut.
Brown sugar instead of white.
Sprinkle coconut on top when almost baked; lightly brown, take out.
Frost or unfrost.
For the holidays: stir in some colored “fruitcake” fruit and ice with white icing. I call this my “fake fruitcake.”