bar cookies

Today I'm in a baking mood and since we're going on a walk in a park with a big group tomorrow I can bake a few things and not have to eat them all myself :)

First up are these strawberry cheesecake bars from Betty Crocker, I had some strawberries, cream cheese, and a sugar cookie mix to use up and so this recipe worked out perfectly. Didn't change anything about that, except instead of using "fruit spread" I made my own strawberry topping of sorts. I got the original recipe from a diabetic cooking site but I changed a lot so I'll just post what I did ;)

strawberry topping:

1 tsp corn starch
1/4 cup Orange Juice
1 cup Mashed OR Pureed Fresh Strawberries
couple of tsp of sugar
1 tbsp Orange Peel Slivers
1/4 tsp Coriander

I poured the orange juice into a sauce pan then sprinkled the corn starch over top and stirred to combine. Then added the remaining ingredients and stirred on the stove over medium heat. Let it come to a boil and simmered it for awhile until it thickened up. Then I let it cool pretty much completely. It made just about 3/4 cup of topping from my one standard package of berries (less a few my 2 year old berry thief stole). Smells a little orange-y from the juice/peel but that should still be good with the cheesecake. May help counteract the sweetness of the sugar cookie crust.

I texted my sister if she had any requests for tomorrow and she wanted me to make my oatmeal jam squares so here's the recipe for that too. Really easy and pretty good :) and since it involves oats you can pretend its good for you.

Oatmeal Jam Squares

2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup melted butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 jam (I like seedless raspberry for these)

Preheat oven to 375, treat a 9x13 with cooking spray.

Mix everything except the jam together in a bowl (I just use a spatula, don't need a mixer). Separate 2 cups of the mixture and press the rest into the pan.

Spread the jam over top so its as even as possible. If you have thick jam you may need to warm it a little in the microwave to make it spread better.

Sprinkle the rest of the oat mixture over top of the jam. Bake 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Cool completely, cut into bars.