Baking Snacks for Your Family

My food bill is about $60-$70 per week for my family of 4. One of the reasons is, I bake all our snacks. I don't like the preservatives and additives manufacturers put in our food. By baking our own snacks, I can customize them with no additives and I can add whole wheat flour, flax seed, oat flour and other items which would cost a lot in the "healthy" section of the supermarket. Unhealthy snack foods are really cheap. You can get a bag of bargain cookies for about $1.00 at the Dollar Tree. But if you want whole wheat anything, you may be paying a lot more.

Last night, my daughter and I decided to make oatmeal cookie squares. I like to make the squares, because they do not take as much labor as cookies. It took us a total of 5 minutes of hands-on time...the time in which a commercial was on during our favorite Sunday night show. Here is the recipe:

Oatmeal Cookie Squares

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cups oatmeal (I have used quick or old fashion with great results)
1 cup whole wheat flour (if you want some flax meal, I have substituted about 1/4 cup of flax meal for the same amount of whole wheat flour)

Mix the all ingredients except oatmeal and flour. Add flour and oatmeal. Put into an 8 x 8 inch pan and bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

I hope you enjoy this!