What a great cake to make for a special occasion, a birthday, a holiday or just because you want to bake something amazing...

Recipe reprinted from Ina Garten's Website
Copyright 2006, Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter/Publishers, All Rights Reserved

Since then it has been consistently a favorite of food editors, bloggers, cooks and kids, too, because it is so simple to make.

But first, a little trivia about the great lady herself, often imitated but never duplicated, Katherine Hepburn...

Fact 4

This talented performer has won four academy awards for best actress in a film. Her first award was for her role in Morning Glory in 1933. It would take another 34 years before she would win another Academy award. The other movies for which she won Oscar awards as best actress were “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”, “On Golden Pond” and “The Lion In Winter”.

Fact 5

Katharine Hepburn starred in her final film role in 1994 in the movie Love Affair.

Fact 6

Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were long time companions. Hepburn and Tracy starred together in many films throughout her career.

Fact 7

In 1932 this performer was paid $1,500 a week for her appearances on Broadway. At this time this sum of money was unheard of for young actresses.

Fact 8

She was a natural redhed and as a child, Katharine cut her hair off, wore boys’ clothes and made people call her Jimmy.

Fact 9

She was 96 years old when she died on June 29, 2003. She died at her old family home in Connecticut. She was buried in her family plot at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford.

Fact 10

Before her demise she requested to be buried with no memorial service. Her wishes were upheld but to honor her long time film career and the impact she had on films, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for one minute during her burial service.

And now for that famous brownie recipe....

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

* 1 stick butter

* 2 eggs

* 1 cup granulated sugar

* 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

* 1 cup broken up walnut or pecan pieces (for better flavor, toast the nuts at 350 F for about 5 minutes)

* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

* Pinch salt

Preparation

* Preheat oven to 325F.

* Grease an 8-inch-square pan. (Line it with aluminum foil, overhanging on all sides.)  I used parchment paper instead of foil to make a saddle, spraying both the pan and the parchment paper with cooking spray so they won't stick.

* Melt butter in a saucepan with cocoa and stir until smooth.

* Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

* Whisk in eggs, one at a time.

* Stir in vanilla.

* In a separate bowl, combine sugar, flour, nuts and salt.

* Add to the cocoa-butter mixture. Stir until just combined.

* Pour into prepared pan and bake 30-40 minutes. (Do not overbake: Center should still be a little gooey.)

* Let cool completely before cutting into squares. If foil lining is used, lift from pan and cut into 16 squares on a cutting board.

Don't make this in a 9" pan, the brownies will be too thin, and if you bake in a loaf pan, they will be too thick.  You really do need an 8" pan for these.  If you don't have one, Nordic Ware makes a really nice commercial one, their quality is always excellent.  

If you have any interest,  here's a link to Amazon for you.

Whether you have a chronic cough, flu, sinus congestion or Covid, whatever cough you have, this homemade cough syrup will seriously make you feel good. It's all that whiskey and yummy peppermint flavor.  

This is family tested and approved.  A shot before bedtime and you will quit coughing and sleep like a baby.

Fill a small mason jar with broken peppermint candy, you can use a food processor, blender or a rolling pin to beat candy into submission.

-Add 1 generous tablespoon of Honey.

-Squeeze 1/2 lemon over the peppermint candy

-Pour Bourbon over ingredients until jar is full.  Paw-Paw recommends  Wild Turkey Bourbon (101 proof) but any whiskey will work...

-Screw on Lid.

-Wait until fully dissolved (you can shake jar occasionally to help dissolve faster).  If it doesn't dissolve fully, just strain it and pour it back into the pint jar...

-Fill a shot glass with the concoction and drink until that cough goes away...

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I'm totally obsessed with my Ninja Foodi Smart XL 6-in-1 Indoor Grill & Air Fryer. I love the convenience, it's totally enclosed so there is no mess, it never smokes, and the best feature is the probe. Just insert it and set meat to the desired cooking preference, rare, medium rare, etc. it cooks it to perfection and alerts you when it's finished. The air fryer has a really large cooking surface, too . 

This is the best piece of kitchen equipment I've bought since my Instant Pot and I use it multiple times weekly. It's well worth the $$ to upgrade to this model with all it's great features. And no doubt, it will be on sale Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We never use our outdoor grill anymore, this is so much easier to use and cleanup is a breeze, I just put everything in the dishwasher. 

Think about it, what a great Christmas gift this would make.

Here's the Amazon link to see all the great features.

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A few years ago Pioneer Woman published a recipe for Slow Cooker Candied Sweet Potatoes and I was all over that like mayo on white.  Could it actually be this easy?  And the answer is YES!!!!  I adjusted her recipe though because we're not a fan of spices and vanilla in our sweet potatoes.  

I made them the way we always have:

Several large sweet potatoes

 1/2 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

A little dash of salt

Half a stick of butter

1/4 cup water 

2.5 heaping Tablespoons of cornstarch

Be sure and toss the sweet potatoes with the cornstarch until they are well coated.  I used more cornstarch than Ree did in her recipe, probably because I always use really large sweet potatoes.

I cut them in smaller chunks, cooked first on low, after an hour switched to high because I was afraid they wouldn't get done. Then I cooked an hour and a half on high and they were PERFECTION!

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6 to 7 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

4 tablespoons salted butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Juice of 1 orange

1/4 cup water

Pinch of kosher salt

Chopped walnuts, toasted, for serving

Chopped fresh parsley, for serving

Toss the sweet potatoes with the cornstarch in a bowl to coat well. Add the mixture to a slow cooker and dot with the butter. Sprinkle over the brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice and cayenne. Pour in the vanilla, orange juice and 1/4 cup water. Season with salt. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low, stirring once or twice, until the potatoes are tender, about 3 hours.

Toss the potatoes once more and transfer to a serving dish. Sprinkle with the walnuts and parsley and serve.

Source: Food Tv

Picture courtesy of Adobe Free License Stock Photos

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Add 1 cup sugar, 1 strip orange or lemon zest and 2 tablespoons water to the pan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries are soft, about 10 minutes. 

Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst, about 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the reserved cranberries. 

Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste and cool to room temperature before serving.

Source:  Food Network