Monster Pecan Shortbread Bars

Last week while the kids were sick, we watched a few of my favorite cooking shows. Barefoot Contessa is BY FAR my favorite - Ina Garten just makes me want to entertain with REALLY good food. I also love to stare at her stylish, spacious, white kitchen.



In this specific episode, she made Pecan Squares as dessert for the lunch she was making for her fabulous friends {and delivering, how sweet!} My boys and I were drooling! We had almost all of the ingredients - except we didn't have enough pecans. But we did have some leftover M&M's from a party and some caramel ball trail mix to use up. Why not try the recipe with our toppings AND the little bit of pecans we have on hand?!?

Not just any toppings, but peanut butter M&M's, pretzel M&M's, regular M&M's, cashews, peanuts, pecans, and milk chocolate caramel balls. Indulgent? YES!!!

I'm going to be a pain now. To get the recipe, you'll have to follow one of my links to print it. I won't take credit for her genius and frankly I'm far too lazy to copy the whole thing here anyways. :) You understand, right?

To make my version, when she adds the pecans to the caramel/toffee topping, you will need to add the M&M's or trail mix {whatever you choose to use.} You can replace all or some of the pecans, just keep the amount at 2 lbs or so as directed.

Here's the bars after they finished cooking and cooling. I wasn't sure if the M&M's would hold up to the 25-30 minutes in the oven, but they did! And it looks kinda like a MONSTER cookie on top to me, hence the new name :)

Again, here's the link to Ina Garten's Pecan Squares. 

*** My entry into Just Something I Whipped Up sponsored by Appliances Online and the Bosch Washing Machines ***

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