Festive Oat & Candy Cookie Bars

I've been making these bars for years, usually around Easter, Halloween, and Christmas.  The reason?  Well, we always have an abundance of candy leftover, and what better way to use excess candy than to bake with it?  Everyone loves these bars, and you can customize them according to candy preference.  Snickers, Almond Joy, Twix, etc, all good, all gooey.  If you're going for cute, though, nothing looks better than M&M's, particularly if you have seasonal colors.  Pastel at Easter, red & green for Christmas, and Halloween?  We're using regular M&M's today, because we had oodles of them leftover.  It's a simple bar cookie, and with the oats, you can at least tell yourself that you're getting some fiber...

Festive Oat & Candy Cookie Candy Bars Printable Recipe
2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups M&Ms, divided
1 14-oz can condensed milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Butter or spray a 13x9 pan, then line with parchment paper, so that paper extends over long-side of pan; set aside.
Mix oats, flour, pecans, brown sugar, baking soda and salt together. 
With the mixer on low, slowly drizzle melted butter into oat mixture; mix until crumbly.
Remove 2 cups of mixture and pat remaining mixture into prepared pan.
Bake crust for 10 minutes, then remove and allow to cool; lower oven temperature to 350 degrees.
Melt 1 cup of the M&M's in the microwave for about 60-90 seconds; remove and combine with condensed milk, stirring well.
Pour over crust and set aside.
Combine reserved crumb mixture with reserved 1/2 cup of M&M's; sprinkle over M&;M and condensed milk mixture.
Bake for 28-30 minutes at 350 degrees.
Allow to cool completely before cutting into squares

Linked to:
Recipe Swap Thursday
Homemade Holidays Recipe Swap
Friday Favorites
Family Friendly Fridays
Friday Potluck
Foodie Friday
Tailgating Time
Potluck Sunday