Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars

My mom asked me this year what I'd bring to Thanksgiving. My response was "I don't know, what do you need that I can make?"
My family's Thanksgiving spread is pretty traditional year to year (as I imagine many families are) so this question was necessary because I have never made any of the dishes that go with our dinner. I've helped my mom for years, but never to a degree that I felt I could wholly take on any of them with confidence.
We decided that I should bring a dessert, because our dessert table is much more flexible that day than the dinner table.

I decided to make these caramel apple cheesecake bars that I'd made once before and thought I remembered enjoying.

I hate me sometimes.

Yes, these bars are delicious beyond all reason or explanation, HOWEVER, I felt like I was in the kitchen for freaking ever. It might have just been that I was getting anxious about how long they were taking that made them seem to take even longer, but whatever the reason, these really felt like they took too long. Luckily, they were amazing, so it was worth it. Seriously, both my brother and my brother-in-law stopped me separately to make sure I knew how good they were.

Before you get into the ingredients and think I'm crazy, I should tell you that this is originally a Paula Dean recipe, so that's why there's so much butter. Also, I hated chopping all of the apples into tiny bits because it was just so tedious, but once I mixed the cinnamon mixture into the bowl of cut up apples, I forgave them for being obnoxious to cut because they smelled soooooo good.

Oh, and thank you to whatever recipe I'd made since we moved to the new house that required oats, because I forgot to get them when I was getting these ingredients, and I was SO thankful that I didn't have to go to the grocery store that day for them.

Recipe:
Ingredients:
2 Cups Flour
1/2 Cup firmly packed Brown Sugar
2 sticks Butter, softened
2 8oz packages of Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 Cup sugar + 2 Tbsp Sugar, divided
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
3 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored, and finely chopped
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 Cup Caramel Topping

Streusel Topping:
1 Cup firmly packed Brown Sugar
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Quick Cooking Oats
1 stick butter, softened

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350
-In medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter with forks until mixture is crumbly. Press evenly into 13" x 9" pan lined with aluminum foil. Bake 15 min or until lightly browned.
-In large bowl, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Add eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Pour over warm crust.
-In small bowl, stir together chopped apples, remaining 2 Tbsp sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture.
-In small bowl, combine streusel ingredients and mix well. Sprinkle evenly over apple mixture in pan. Bake 30 minutes until filling is set. Drizzle with warm caramel topping.

I chilled mine in the fridge for a bit once we got to my mom's because it felt like they were going to ooze everywhere if we'd cut into them without it. It might be that they needed more time in the oven, but that wasn't happening.