Chocolate & Oat Bars--Week 5 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies

These certainly aren't the cheapest cookies I've ever made, but sometimes you want what you want, ya know?  And the more expensive ingredients in these, the chocolate chips, the nuts, sweetened condensed milk, and butter all tend to go on very nice sales around the holidays.  Plus, if you have coupons....well, it could become one of the cheapest cookies, if you play your couponing/sale-searching game right!

I used more chocolate chips in this than nuts, because that is what I had on hand (and I didn't feel like going out to the garage and shelling black walnuts for these cookies and didn't feel like using acorns either), but if you wanted to make these a bit healthier, you could decrease the chocolate chips and increase the nuts.  As long as the total chocolate/nut addition equals about 2 cups, it shouldn't affect the recipe very much (although you would get a more chocolaty or nutty taste, depending on your ratio.  Duh)

Chocolate & Oat Bars

1 cup whole wheat flour (finely ground would work best)

1 cup quick-cooking oats

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk (not to be confused with evaporated milk)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, mix together flour, oats, sugar, and butter.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the oat mixture and firmly press the rest of the mixture into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 baking pan.  Bake 10 minutes.  Spread sweetened condensed milk over crust.  Sprinkle on the nuts and chocolate chips.  Sprinkle remaining oat mixture and press firmly.  Bake 30 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool.  Cut into bars.

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Here's what everyone else has been baking up this week for the 12 Weeks of Christmas cookies: