Fellowship Food: Plummy Parsonage Bars

We have a coffee fellowship between worship and Sunday School each week and people bring all kinds of fun snacks - doughnuts, cake, cookies, even chips and salsa!  Last week at our welcome luncheon the congregation gave the parsonage a microwave oven - it didn't have one before.  So I wanted to make something in the microwave for coffee fellowship time and found these:

 

I couldn't remember the name of the recipe at church yesterday so we decided to call them "Plummy Parsonage Bars." 

The real name is Microwave Oatmeal Jam Bars and I found the recipe at the food.com website.  

• ³⁄₄ cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 ³⁄₄ cups unsifted flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¹⁄₂ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ¹⁄₂ cups quick-cooking rolled oats
• ³⁄₄ cup raspberry jam (I used plum, but you can use any fruit jam or preserves.  I have some homemade apple butter a congregation member made and I think that would be delicious.  Will definitely make them with strawberry jam during strawberry season.)

1. Lightly grease an 8-inch, heat-resistant, non-metallic baking dish.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Stir in flour, salt, baking soda and oats. Combine until well blended.
3. Press one-half of mixture into bottom of prepared baking dish.
4. Heat, uncovered, on FULL POWER 5 minutes.
5. Spread jam evenly over baked oat mixture.
6. Crumble remaining oat mixture over jam and press lightly.
7. Heat, uncovered, on FULL POWER 7 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick.(It should come out clean).
8. Allow to cool and cut into bars.

They were delicious and it was easy to make them in the parsonage kitchen, which doesn't have a lot of equipment.  Note:  the parsonage microwave is an 1100 watt oven.  You probably need to consider adjusting the time if you have a more powerful one.  These were not too dry - nice and chewy on the bottom and slightly crumbly on top.  Yum!