Chocolate Chip Apricot Bars
Wanda shared a chocolate chip apricot bar recipe with me more than a decade ago, when I made it for our SRI chili cookoff and it won best dessert! The recipe is adapted from a Gourmet 1995 recipe. I forgot about it until yesterday, when I was thinking about what dessert to take to a neighbor's barbecue. I mentioned to my dad that I thought I'd take cookies, and he said, "Chocolate chip? Those would disappear!" He's right! But this is an interesting twist on that -- with just a tweak to the butter to make it vegan, and reducing the brown sugar a bit (it's pretty sweet as is). Ingredients For apricot filling: 6 oz dried apricots (~1 cup packed), chopped fine 1/4 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup water 1 teaspoon vanilla For chocolate chip mixture: 1 1/3 cups pecans 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips 1/2 to 2/3 cup vegan butter (like Miyokos or Earth Balance)