Cat Bars

They contain no cats. Nor are they for consumption by cats; neither are they cat-shaped. Merely, this recipe was posted to me by Cat. Thanks Cat. They are scrumptious.

crust:
1 cup quick oats
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda

filling:
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup dried tart cherries
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 T flour


To cook filling: bring the first 3 filling ingredients to a boil, then simmer for about 5 minutes. You will need to add a little more water from time to time, the fruit soaks it up a lot. Mix the flour & sugar together, dump them in the fruit and simmer until the filling is thickened and you can no longer taste the raw flour.

Get out your trusty pastry cutter and bash all the crust ingredients together rather coarsely. Press half into a 9x9 baking pan, spread filling over it, top with remaining crust, bake at 350 for about 30-40 minutes. Cool before cutting, they are crumbly. Of course, if you was to use a spoon and eat them out of the pan, I wouldn't rat on you.

I did make a couple changes to Cats recipe, now I think onit. I added a dash of lemon to the filling for more tartness, and a pinch of salt and a pinch of punkin pie spice to the crust, and because I can't possibly leave well enough alone, I chopped about a quarter of the filling in my mini-prep after it was cooked to change the texture. And I think my brown sugar was too dry. I should have added a couple drops of water to the crust to compensate.