Blueberry Crumb Bars

I'm sorry that I didn't get this delicious recipe posted yesterday. I tried, really I did, but every time I uploaded pictures they came out streaked and shaded. Same thing happened this morning, so I don't know what's going on! They seem to be fine now though.
I usually don't post back-to-back dessert type dishes, but these bars are so good that I just had to let you know! And besides, I call them breakfast bars, after all, they have oatmeal and blueberries in them! And I did eat them for breakfast, but my husband likes them with ice cream piled on top, (of course). This recipe came from Epicurious and was featured in the July 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. The crust is wonderful and holds up well so that you can eat this as a bar with you fingers. I changed the filling a bit. The recipe calls for the addition of 1 cup of blueberry preserves, but I had a lot of blueberries in the fridge, so I added an extra cup of blueberries and omitted the preserves. I also increased the flour so that the blueberries would thicken up. These Blueberry Crumb Bars turned out perfect! A crisp bottom crust, a perfect blueberry center and crumb topping on top with almonds! I'll be making these again and again!

BLUEBERRY CRUMB BARS (adapted slightly from Epicurious)

Crust:

2 cups flour

1 cup old fashioned oatmeal

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup(2 sticks) chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 in. cubes

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Filling:

4 cups fresh or frozen, (do not thaw) blueberries

3 Tbs. flour

2/3 cup sugar (next time I may drop that to 1/2 cup)

1 tsp. finely grated lemon peel

Preparation

For Crust:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter bottom of a 9x13 in. pan. I used a glass baking dish. In a large bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon together. Add butter and use a pastry blender or fingers to mix butter into flour mixture until it sticks together in small clumps.

Transfer 2 cups of flour mixture to another bowl; mix in the almonds, and reserve for topping.

Press remaining crumb mixture evenly onto the bottom of prepared pan. Bake crust until golden and firm to touch, about 20 minutes.. Cool 10 minutes.

For filling:

Mix blueberries, 3 T. flour, sugar and lemon peel together in a bowl. Spread evenly over the baked crust. Now, sprinkle with the reserved topping.

Bake bars, at 375, until filling bubbles at edges and topping is golden brown, about 40 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. Try to restrain yourself from cutting and eating them before they are cool!

They are best on the day they are made, of course. The crust can be stirred together up to 2 days ahead and stored in the refrigerator, covered.

This is the second day for ours and they are still nice and firm, but I will store them in the fridge tonight, if there's any left! Hehe! Really, these are good, try them!