People treats

As a friend of mine at work is fond of saying, “If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like.” If you’re a fan of oatmeal cookies, these are delicious and a lot faster to make than individual cookies. And your house will smell wonderful while they’re baking. They’re great for breakfast, much better than those dry breakfast cookie-wannabees in the cereal aisle at the grocery store.

OATMEAL BARS
3 C. oatmeal
1 C. brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 C. milk
1/2 C. butter (can substitute peanut butter or apple sauce)
2 eggs

Combine all ingredients and place in 9-inch-square pan sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes. Add dried fruits if you want. I added about 1 C. of chopped dried apricots because I LOVE dried apricots. Fresh apricots, not so much. Go figure.

I baked mine in an 8-inch-square pan for 45 minutes. I’m sure at some point in my life I owned a 9-inch-square pan but I have no idea where it is. The bars looked nice and brown on top when I took them out but were a little sticky on the bottom. If I’d put them in the right size of pan, they probably would have baked just fine.

When I make them again, I might experiment with using peanut butter in place of the butter to reduce the fat content. They’re slightly crumbly, very filling and would be awesome served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Oh yeah, that's got breakfast food written all over it.