Many times when I look for a new recipe, I look to the past. One source of inspiration I frequently use are the recipes I inherited from my paternal grandma.

The other place I often  look for ideas is this really old cookbook from my maternal grandmother — it came with some recipes she cut out of magazines and some handwritten recipes. Both of these are excellent sources to find something “new.” I really recommend when you are at a garage sale or cleaning out your parents’ or grandparents’ stuff you should keep the old cookbooks. You just never know what you will find.

When I was looking for a new treat recently, I went through my grandma’s recipes and found these bars. At first when I was reading the recipe I couldn’t remember having them, but once I had a taste it all came back to me. It is something she usually made at Christmas time. I’m not sure why we only had them at Christmas, but at that time of year my grandma was a cookie factory.

My grandma called these Toffee Squares; my daughter thinks they are more like blonde brownies. Whatever you want to call them, they are good. With every recipe I make recently, I think about how to change the flavor some, and I really think that adding peanut butter would put these bars over the top.