Sweet Potato Casserole, Redux-- and some of my Christmas menu to come

This year, I am a dismal failure about my Christmas Baking & Edible Gifts.  I had all kinds of plans, and had plenty of recipe ideas on my Pinterest boards. I bought the canning jars, plastic bags, fancy bows and strings. I stocked up King Arthur Flour, powdered sugar, dark and white chocolate, nuts, all kinds of sprinkles and fancy doo-dads.  But, the best of intentions fell flat.  I have a perfectly good excuse--

I work full-time, people!  I'm out the door at 6:15am, and home around 5-ish.  That is, if I don't stop for errands.  Then I get home closer to 6pm.  I cook dinner, read the mail, tidy up a little bit, and spend a little bit of time visiting food blogs. I rarely have time to watch TV programs that I've recorded.  By 8:30pm, I'm getting ready for bed and it's light's out!  Repeat cycle.

How do you food bloggers find time to create and post such beautiful Christmas recipes?  I want to know!  There. End of whining rant.

For our Thanksgiving Dinner, the star of the show was the Sweet Potato Casserole.  I made this recipe, last Thanksgiving, and it was well liked.   This year, my son asked if I would make sweet potatoes with marshmallows.  Well, I hadn't really planned on it, so I didn't have marshmallows.  It was the night before Thanksgiving, when he posed this question.  There was no way I was going to hit the grocery store battlegrounds of the Last Minute Thanksgiving Menu craziness.

Then, I remembered that I had a jar of Marshallow Creme.   I tweaked the original recipe a little bit. For one, I replaced the white sugar with all brown sugar-- and cut down on the amount a bit. It took a little bit of finesse, but I managed to spead the entire jar over the mixture of baked sweet potatoes, egg, milk, vanilla, and brown sugar.

   I also made the Pecan Streusel with a tad more flour, so that it didn't melt so much.  

VERDICT:   Suffice it to say that this is the new and improved version, and how I will make it this way from now on.  The marshmallow creme melted into a lovely gooey filling.  The pecan-streusel added a nice contrast with a nice crunch.  I really think that this "side dish" is a crustless sweet potato pie.  But, my family doesn't care.  I saw family members, who shall remain nameless, going back for more helpings.    I didn't get a final photo.  You know how it is, when the hungry guests are ready to eat. 

This Christmas Eve, the family has voted that I make a more traditional German-Style Dinner. So, our menu includes

 

Austrian Goulash, 

 with Semmel Knoedel (bread dumplings).

I'll be making other traditional Bavarian dishes, like red cabbage (my husband and older brother loves this), and my son's request is homemade spaetzle.   We spend our Christmas Eve, honoring the memory of our Mutti.  My brother's play music, we sing Christmas Carols and we open our gifts-- in true European Christmas style.  You know,  I'm fine with that.  Because I'm working all the way until December 23rd, and I'm thankful that I can prepare a meal that is far less work than a Prime Rib Dinner.

As for the Christmas treats-- well, I'm T-6 days and sweating counting.   At the last stage, I think I'm looking more at making Peppermint Bark and some bar cookies.  That's a whole lot easier. In the meantime, I'll live vicariously through my fellow food bloggers. Y'all are making me wish I had the time to be as creative as so many of you are.

One day, I shall retire.  Unless, one of those weekly lottery tickets my husband buys hits the jackpot.  Dear Santa... are you listening?


I have lots of recipes to blog, though.  I have two weeks of vacation, starting this Friday. I'll get those uploaded-- and trust me...none of them have peppermint or pumpkin in them.  I'm going back to savory, simple, fast and good!