down-to-earth: baked oatmeal bars

cranberry almond baked oatmeal bars

I have made these several times, experimenting with different combinations of fruit, nuts, milk types and sugar amounts. You could skip the brown sugar altogether, using the dried fruit as the only sweetener, but I think they need at least 1/4 cup brown sugar to make them palatable. This last time, I used 3/4 cup dried cranberries, almonds, vanilla almond milk, and about 3/8 cup brown sugar and the results were quite tasty. They will come out chewy and dense, maybe like a cross between a muffin and a chewy granola bar?

plus homemade vanilla!

Source: Kath Eats Real Food

ingredients

60 oz vodka + 18 whole vanilla beans + 2 months in a cool dark place, shaken occasionally = homemade vanilla!
*Will experiment with whiskey and bourbon at some point

baked oatmeal bars

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, etc)
3/4 cup dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, cherries, dates, coconut, etc)
*OR 1/2 cup dried fruit and 1/4 cup seeds (flax, pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, etc)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4- 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cups milk (cow, almond, soy, etc)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, mix wet ingredients (milk, egg, vanilla). Add wet ingredients to dry and stir to combine. Pour into a 9 x 9 baking dish and bake for 40 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars or squares.