Those Caramel Things, by Susie

I don't have a lot of heirloom recipes. Both my grandmothers were farm wives. Which means they cooked meat until it was good and dead, and vegetables until they were almost unrecognizable. They were both fabulous with pickles and yeast breads. The pickles are too much work (me, can?) and the yeast breads . . . well, I tried, even with their recipes, and I just don't have the touch. I've finally decided that the reason theirs tasted so much better than any I've had in years had something to do with the fact that the milk and butter came straight from the cows. It makes me sad, though, that my kids will never get a chance to taste them.

I don't cook like my mother, either. Even my mother doesn't cook like she used to, now that she has ready access to things like fresh ginger and salmon, which simply weren't stocked in our small town grocery stores.

There are two recipes of hers, however, that I'll never give up. One is meatloaf, which my 9 year old just asked last week to teach him how to make, so he can make it for his kids someday. The other is her caramel bars, a recipe I think she got from another woman in her church and which are, in a word, legendary.

In college, when she sent me a pail of them, I had to make sure to be home when the mailman arrived, or the entire ice cream bucket was demolished before I had a chance to hide any. (I lived in a house with five other girls, smack dab between a house that held a good chunk of the offensive line and the Farmhouse fraternity. I swear they could smell food from half a campus away.)

They've made an appearance in an article in the RWR by Eloisa James, and I"m pretty sure they're showing up in Connie Brockway's next book. And there are at least a couple of books out there that I am sure would never have been conceived if the writers hadn't been under the influence of sugar.

I don't make them often because, well, if I make them, I eat them. I dug out the recipe this week because a batch of young people who work for my husband have decided they must have a Guitar-Hero-II-off, and ours is apparently the appropriate house to hold it. If there's one thing I know how to feed, it's young people bent on gaming a night away. Since these are (kind of) actual grown-ups, I imagine there'll be cheap beer in the fridge by the Mountain Dew, but I'm certain the two basic food groups are still sugar and caffeine.

I've got the sugar covered.

Those Caramel Things:

Filling:
1 pkg. caramels, preferably Kraft
1 can sweetened condensed milk ( the regular sized can)
2 tablespoons butter (spring for the real thing - this isn't the time to skimp!)

Crust:
1/2 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. flour
1 1/2 c. oatmeal (I've never used steel cut, but any other kind I've ever used works fine)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg, beaten

Toppings: 1 c. chocolate chips, 1 c. cashews (okay, maybe a little more)

Preheat oven to 350. Mix the first six crust ingredients (butter through baking soda - I melt the butter, just to make it easy, but you can do it with softened). Mix in the vanilla and egg. Reserve about 3/4 c. of the crust mixture; pat the rest into a 9 X 13 pan and bake about ten minutes, until light brown.

Meanwhile, make the caramel filling. You just melt all the caramels, the butter, and the condensed milk together, either in a double bowler or a big bowl in the microwave. (I think the mic. is easier.) Note: peeling the caramels is an EXCELLENT task for young fingers, though be prepared to lose a few caramels on the way. Not that I ever sneak any.)

Pour the filling over the browned crust. Sprinkle with chocolate chip and cashews, then crumble the rest of the oatmeal mixture over it. Bake another ten minutes or so, until lightly brown. (If you bake too long the caramel gets hard!)

That's it.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

Susie