As I drifted off to sleep last night, visions of delicious cookies made with dried apples, cinnamon, and oats danced in my head. I've never made cookies with that particular set of ingredients, but I am 100% confident that they will be damned delicious. I'll post the recipe later in the weekend once I've baked.

I have no idea where this craving came from, as usual. Sometimes it seems like my subconscious mind is wholly occupied with food cravings. Or maybe it was the fact that earlier this week, I had a lunch meeting which came with a bag lunch, and the cookies for dessert were so unsatisfying.

There's something about generic storebought cookies that just depresses the hell out of me. They have this weird neutral background flavor, no matter what type of cookie they are. Mix cookies taste the same way. I will never in a million trillion googleplex years understand why anyone would use a mix to prepare baked goods. Homemade tastes so much better, and takes at most 15 minutes more (and that's a generous assessment.)**

Earlier this year I was explaining this to Otis, who despite his incredible cooking skills, doesn't bake. He was somewhat skeptical, and to prove it I hit pause on Survivor (yes, I watch it...no I don't want to talk about it), got up, and returned in less than 20 minutes with warm homemade brownies. i think they were the utterly simple recipe from my ancient copy of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook that I stole from my mother. Allow me to summarize here: melt butter and chocolate. Add eggs, sugar, vanilla. Add flour and baking powder. Stir. Pour in pan. Bake.

Seriously, it's that easy.

My attitude, obviously, gets me in trouble sometimes at pot lucks and such. I have a really hard time controlling my face if I bite into something and can tell that it's storebought or mix-based. I don't know what I look like under those circumstances, exactly, but I imagine it's a mixture of incredulousness, surprise, and disappointment. So, if anyone reading this has been the recipient of such a face, I apologize. It's not personal. And if you ever want to come over and bake with me, please do. It'll be fun. We'll get flour everywhere and drink wine.

** Of course I realize there are baked goods that take a long time. The delicious lemon curd cake Jenn made earlier this year, for example, must have been extremely time consuming. I made some chocolate concoction from Cook's Illustrated that took about an hour to prep over the holidays. But here I'm talking about your baking basics: cookies, brownies, loaf cakes, muffins, etc.

My husband has a sweet tooth that constantly surprises me. Not only does he love candy of all kinds, and would cheerfully eat dessert with every meal, but he also demands that his desserts be very sweet. It's a constant battle because I'm the opposite-- even though I love to bake, I can usually take or leave sweets, and only really love rich chocolatey things to be very sweet.

So, Otis really doesn't like the apple-oat bars I made after my cinnamon daydream. I think they're especially tasty, but I've promised him cupcakes to make up for the disppointment.

Apple-Oat Bars

Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter (if you can get it, try Kate's Homemade butter. Yum.)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt (a little more salt than usual brings out the apple flavor)
2 t cinnamon
2 cups old fashioned oats
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dried apple, cut into small pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Cream the butter and sugars
3. Mix in the eggs, one at a time
4. Mix in the vanilla
5. Mix in the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon
6. Fold in the oats, walnuts, and apples
7. Spread into ungreased 13 x 9 pan
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until slightly brown on top
9. Let cool for 5 minutes before cutting into squares