Walnut-Dried Cherry Bars

I can't believe I haven't posted about the Walnut-Dried Cherry Bars in Ellie Kreiger's book So Easy.  I make these all the time.  It's painful for me when I take the last one out of the freezer.  They are perfect for before or after a workout, or for breakfast, or for an afternoon snack when you are craving something sweet and baked.

I have been meaning to mess around with these.  I want to try reversing the flavors - instead of dried cherries with apricot preserves, I want to try dried apricots with cherry preserves.  But I like it too much to mess with it like that.  If there are none left in the freezer, I can't bring myself to do it.

Today I finally tried something at least a little different.  I did not feel like removing everything in the refrigerator to get to my whole wheat flour, which is also almost gone, so I reached for something else instead.  Near the front of the shelf was the multigrain flour mix I made from Kim Boyce's book Good to the Grain.  I have been substituting this in many places in an attempt to make things more interesting.  It worked out great in the oatmeal sandwich bread, and it lightened that up a bit, so I thought it would be good here.  Lucky for me, it was great.  I always have to eat one of these, because I make them when I am already craving them, so I got to try it with the multigrain flour and it came out really well.  It was lighter than the whole wheat but didn't stand out too much in taste.

If you like to take snacks with you to work, school, etc. this is a perfect recipe for transportation.  I wrap mine in wax paper, then store them in ziplock bags in the freezer.  I grab one before I leave the house and when I reach for it 2 hours later it's completely defrosted.

As I mentioned above, I'd like to try reversing the flavor combination, but I would also like to try some completely different flavors as well.  Any suggestions?