gettin' my sweet potato on

I have been reading lots of food and fitness blogs and I have come across several things that look yummy.  Most of the time it's stuff that I know the kids won't touch, or it just takes a lot of prep time.  However, the other day I read about these Cheesy Sweet Potato Crisps and they looked fabulous!!  I thought that maybe the kids would even eat them...they will not eat a baked sweet potato, even with cinnamon and butter!  Crazy kids.  Anyway, I spent the day tackling this disaster

I can't believe I'm even posting this picture for others to see.  I feel like I'm an awful parent for even allowing my child's room to become a health hazard.  Please refrain from contacting social services.  I'll have to post the after pics later....just to prove that we don't live like this ALL the time, actually it's just the kids' rooms that get THIS bad. 

Needless to say, after dealing with this all day, plus the 3 kids, I was pretty beat come dinner time - so I took the idea of the cheesy sweet potato crisps and did a quick and dirty version.  Much to my surprise however, they were pretty good!  Not a surprise - the kids wouldn't eat them.  They all tried them (which is a plus) but were not impressed.  The hubs and I ended up eating them all, we thought they were good.  I'll go ahead and apologize for the poor picture quality, I was too tired to get the other camera, and just used my phone.  and barely got those before digging into the food.  We grilled boneless pork, and I fixed a salad with cucumbers and carrots from our garden!!  The girls got excited b/c I sent them outside to pull the carrots before dinner.  Again, with being tired, juggling a hungry 2 year old and trying to get dinner ready, I did not get pics of my girls happy faces when they brought in 2 big 'ol carrots!  They even went back out to pull a third just for the fun of it.

So, back to the sweet potatoes...I'm not a huge fan, but wanted to give them a try.  I sliced them with the food processor (but they would crisp better if they were thinner I think) and threw them in a plastic bag with olive oil, rosemary, basil, salt, pepper and a little garlic powder.  Coated them well then placed them on a baking pan.  Baked for 10 minutes at 450 degrees...and this may not have been smart.  Apparently - and learn from my mistakes - olive oil smokes when it gets too hot.  Who knew.  Probably everyone else.  Anyway, I had smoke coming out of the oven so I lowered the temp to 400 and baked for 5-10 more minutes (i forget), then I sprinkled an italian blend of cheeses on top and baked for another 5-10 minutes.  I really wanted to bake them longer, to get them crispier - but everyone was ready to eat and the meat was done.  Go meat!  (sorry, it's a catchy commercial).  But overall, the combination of spices and cheese with the sweetness of the potato made a pretty good combination.

I would love to try them again when I can follow the original recipe, I'm sure they would be mo'betta.  Word.