Marvelous Cookie Bars

Anything with M&Ms ought to be scrumptious, and these were, but do keep a glass of milk handy!

Marvelous Cookie Bars

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, divided
• 1 cup mini M&Ms, divided
• 1/2 cup cherry preserves
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in eggs. Combine flour, oats, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and baking soda and blend into the creamed mixture. Stir in 1/4 cup of the walnuts and 3/4 cup of the M&Ms. Reserve 1 cup of the dough and spread remaining dough in a greased 9x9" baking pan. Combine preserves, coconut and remaining nuts; spread evenly over the dough in the pan to within 1/2" of the edges. Drop reserved dough on top and sprinkle with remaining M&Ms. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool completely and cut into 16 bars.

Note: The recipe called for either quick oats or rolled oats, so we'll try it twice - once with butter and quick oats and once with margarine and rolled oats. It also called for semi-sweet M&Ms. We had to go to several stores to find those in stock; feel free to substitute with the more readily available milk chocolate mini M&Ms. In addition, I imagine other flavors of jam/preserves could be used. Don't feel you need to make a special trip to the store.