Healthy desert bars with a side of unhealthy

Working on our calendar for vacation I noticed a meeting on the night we were driving out. I asked Andy to make sure to get those moved around, he came home from his meeting and said "good news and bad.... good is we don't have to worry about that meeting for vacation, the bad news is we are hosting next Friday". Oh! My. Ok... I mean great! What on earth should I make? These guys love their sweets. We've tried savory food but they like sweet and fruity. A strawberry pie is a no brainer, but also these Binge Bars looked pretty amazing too. Since I'm working on using baking goods we have before buying new, caramel and milk chocolate chips were in the cabinet. This was a super easy recipe - the hardest part was unwrapping the caramels (which I had the kids do) and melt them down (which Bronwyn did). These easy bars are pretty amazing, caramel and chocolate with a healthy oatmeal crust. Yes oatmeal is healthy - maybe all the butter and sugar aren't... details.

Binge Bars

1 cup butter softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 11 ounce bag caramels, unwrapped
3 Tablespoons heavy cream
3 Tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9×13-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
Place butter, brown sugar, flour, oats, baking soda and salt in a medium size bowl. Using an electric hand mixer, beat together until combined. Press 3/4 of the cookie dough mixture evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan. (It will be a thin layer) Bake or about 15 min or until lightly browned. Do not overbake.
While the crust is baking, melt the 3 Tablespoons butter, heavy cream and caramels over very low heat. Stir constantly and only keep on low heat as this can burn easily. Cook just until just melted and smooth. Pour melted caramel mixture over warm baked crust. Sprinkle milk chocolate chips evenly over caramel.
Crumble remaining cookie dough evenly over chocolate and caramel. Carefully place back in oven for another 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool completely before cutting into bars. Serve and enjoy!