Sometimes you move to a new city and have to make new friends. And sometimes these new friends invite you over and tell you to bring dessert. Being a food blogger, you feel like you need something impressive. As usual, your other half suggest “those pretzel cookies“, again, and you eventually start throwing everything in your cupboards into the dough and you get these cookies.

Also sometimes you forget to pack your silicone baking mats and don’t have any parchment paper yet and you’re too lazy to want to wash baking sheets so you just make one giant cookie instead. Welcome to my life!

These cookie bars turned out even better than I imagined. They are crunchy on the outside, but still soft on the inside. And the combination of salty pretzels, sweet chocolate and gooey caramel…delicious! Oh, there’s also oatmeal and peanut butter in them. A little bit for everyone!

In case you weren’t already convinced to make these cookie bars for yourself, I’m here to tell you these cookies are good enough to be eaten out of the garbage. No, thats not my new way of describing how delicious things are, my friend told me she literally ate one of these out of the garbage. After deciding she’d had one too many of the cookies, she threw the rest of the bag away. But when she got home from work and was craving a snack decided “wellllll….it can’t hurt to eat it if it’s still in the bag…” and proceeded to dig the bar out of the garbage.

Now if that doesn’t prove how good these cookie bars are, I don’t know what will.

~Stephanie

Everything Cookie Bars

• 1 1/4 c oats
• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1/2 tsp soda
• 1/2 tsp powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c butter (softened)
• 1 c brown sugar
• 1 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c peanut butter
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 c chopped pretzels
• 1 c chocolate chips
• 1/2 c caramel bits (I used Kraft)

1. Combine oats, flour, soda, powder and salt in bowl. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and both sugars until fluffy. Add in eggs and beat until combined.
3. Mix in peanut butter and vanilla.
4. Slowly add in dry ingredients, scraping down sides as needed (this dough is thick).
5. Stir in pretzels, chocolate chips and caramel bits by hand.
6. Spread evenly into a greased (or parchment lined) 9×13 baking pan.
7. Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes, until edges are golden brown and middle is set.
8. Let cool and cut into squares.