Mouth-Watering Crispy Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Roasted sweet potatoes that are crispy and seasoned to perfection make the best side dish for any meal! We are sharing all the tips for making them the best.

Years ago I started to piece together different recipes for the most incredible roasted potatoes ever until I had what I thought was the best recipe ever. And then I saw a post all about adding baking soda to the water that you boil the potatoes in followed by a toss in an empty pan to make the edges all shaggy thus creating a crust on the potatoes and I’ve been sold ever since. Obviously I had no choice but to try the method on sweet potatoes (yams are fine) and my goodness, BEST DECISION EVER!!!

They are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, and I literally cannot stop putting them into my mouth.

Ingredients for Roasted Sweet Potatoes

You only need a few ingredients to make these crispy sweet potatoes and you’ll feel like you’re eating at a fine dining restaurant. Good grief, I’m totally craving them now! Here is what you will need:

• Kosher Salt – seasons the water for boiling which will add flavor to the sweet potatoes
• Baking Soda – boiling the potatoes in baking soda draws out the starch and allows the outside to get brown and crispy
• Sweet Potatoes – yams work fine too
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil – gets infused with rosemary and garlic and is the key to getting that crispy exterior
• Rosemary (fresh) – you want fresh for sure to get the max flavor, can you fresh thyme instead if desired
• Garlic – infuses the oil with tons of flavor
• Black Pepper – fresh cracker preferred
• Parsley (fresh) – used for a topping after roasting, add a fresh pop

Do you find it hard to express how you feel? Sometimes, when we’re frustrated or angry, we might express our feelings indirectly rather than being up-front. But when we aren't open about our feelings, it can create confusion and negatively impact our relationships

Passive-aggressive behaviour can ‘feel normal’ to us - especially if it’s how we’ve grown up seeing others around us deal with relationship issues. Whether done verbally or nonverbally, someone may be passive-aggressive as a way to avoid outright hurting someone else’s feelings, or as a way to show displeasure or disagreement without outright stating it.

It’s a more common way of dealing with things than you might think. But what are the signs we can look out for to recognise (and stop) being passive-aggressive in our romantic relationships? Why are we passive-aggressive in the first place? And is it really a bad thing?

What is passive-aggressive behaviour (and why do we do it?)

Also referred to as non-verbal aggression, when we talk about passive-aggressive behaviour, it refers to when you feel angry or upset with someone, but feel like you can’t or don’t want to tell them.

There are many different reasons why someone might be passive-aggressive. They might have low self-esteem, feel insecure, or be afraid of losing control. Other common reasons can also be as a way of coping with feelings of stress, anxiety, or depression. It can also be a way to try and deal with rejection or conflict, because of feelings of under-appreciation, or because they are worried that any natural feelings of anger aren’t the ‘right’ response, and so trying to sugarcoat things feels like a better option.

Counsellor Andrea Harrn explains more about passive-aggressive behaviour and how it can be a problem in our relationships.

Why is passive-aggressive behaviour bad?

We almost all exhibit signs of passive aggression from time to time. But when it becomes a pattern of behaviour or a habit within our relationships (whether that’s romantic, platonic, or with work colleagues), it can become frustrating or upsetting for the other person involved. And for the person exhibiting this behaviour, their inability to say what is wrong and express themselves clearly can often worsen the issue.

Ultimately, passive aggression can be seen as destructive behaviour. It can prevent change and growth, leading to more negative behaviours, the breakdown of trust, and further relationship problems. Frequent passive-aggressive responses can be a sign of communication issues within your relationship, and if left to become a pattern over time, can damage your relationship.

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Hi friends! And Happy Halloween to those of you who are celebrating today! TBH, I feel like Halloween has come and gone already, and feeling like I really need to rally tonight lol. Between the Trunk or Treat, class parties, friend parties, we celebrated. The kids have tons of candy and fun memories. We good. But we’re still going to bring it strong tonight. 😉 High fives to all of my mama friends out there pushing through; we’re almost there!

It was a super fun weekend. To kick things off, we celebrated P’s birthday with her friends from school + her cousins! The kids had a half day on Friday, so it was the perfect afternoon for a party at Wild Katz. I love parties like this because the kids can run around, the parents can chill, we sing “Happy Birthday” and eat cake, and done. Minimal cleanup required. 😉

I found this cute banner on Etsy:

ordered cupcake toppers, and picked up green candies from Party City.

For treat bags, I filled them with ninja turtle masks and curly straws, slime, nostalgic candy, and the star of the show was these pizza cookies from Simply Bliss.

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Sweet and tangy glaze takes this slow cooker pork roast from just another crockpot meal to a tasty and fantastic meal.

Pork Roast with Glaze

This slow-cooked pork roast is both company worthy and also perfect for a lazy weeknight dinner. I’ve served this pork with smashed potatoes, over rice, (it’s really great with this mushrooms pepper rice pilaf) and stuffed into soft rolls.

This roast was a delicious surprise the first time I made it. I’d originally planned to oven-roast the pork in a more traditional style. However, in the interest of not spending my weekend evening working in the kitchen, I decided to put it in the crockpot that morning instead.

I found the original recipe on allrecipes.com and tweaked it a good bit to meet our needs. (Truth be told, it doesn’t have much in common with the original, but credit where it’s due, right?)

I did not expect the meat to cook so quickly and be falling apart at dinnertime, but it was absolutely perfect and I wouldn’t change a thing.

The sweet, tangy glaze takes just a few minutes to simmer and whisk together and the resulting meal is well worth the extra moment to make it special!

Pork Roast Recipes Slow Cooker

Slow cookers or crockpots are an appliance of which I have more than one. If you are an avid slow cooker user like I am, you might understand the need for more than one. So, let’s talk about my favorites:

First up is this Read more

When a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, the emotional impact is monumental. Here, counsellor Nadia Wyatt shares her story, and the things she learned along the way

We were on holiday in Spain, during Easter in 2014, and were returning back to the UK on Wednesday. My daughter had been complaining she was not well toward the end of our holiday, but we thought nothing of it other than maybe the late nights were too many for our five-year-old. On Thursday, we took her to school as normal. I went to work, to my clients, as normal. But by midday, the school called to ask us to pick our daughter up as she looked grey. I thought, grey? We just got back from Spain, she’d be tanned not grey! Anyway, I went to collect her and took her to our GP to check her over as the school had worried me. Our GP asked me to bring her in first thing the next morning. When we did, he organised an ambulance to take us to our local hospital, where they would do some tests.

After the tests, the next morning, Saturday, they called us into a big room. They told us that they believed our daughter had leukaemia – cancer. They organised an ambulance, and took us to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

It was so quick and so shocking that I don’t think any of us had time to digest or process what was happening. Our five-year-old daughter was eventually diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), the treatment of which is two and a half years of chemotherapy, steroids, alongside hospital stays and visits.

None of us could grasp what was happening, and we were told that we had to stay in hospital for two to three weeks until they had done all the tests. There was so much information given to us, and we met so many different doctors, consultants, and nurses. We saw so many terrible cases and poorly, desperately poorly, kids and babies. It was too much to process and absorb.

Over time, I could see that I was spiralling out of control. This ‘didn’t happen to people like me’, I thought. ‘I am the counsellor, I am not the client.’ But cancer does not discriminate. It was just desperately awful. To watch your fragile child struggle, be in continuous pain, and look so dreadfully sick, and be given a cocktail of chemotherapy and other drugs, is just horrendous.

The lessons I learned

What did I learn from this whole horrendous episode in my life? It is so important to seek professional help from the very beginning. I was a counsellor with years of experience, so surely, I could help myself? Over time, I realised I could not. But it was too late by this point. I was really in a bad way, mentally. I scheduled an appointment with my GP, who prescribed anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, and sleeping tablets. I was also referred to a psychiatrist. In the end, I was having intensive counselling and EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy to help with processing of the trauma that I was living through.

I learned that my husband is an incredible carer for both our daughter and me. He stood by me when anyone else would have walked away. In the hospital, we were allocated a social worker to help us, as they said most couples separate when faced with situations like ours. I am forever indebted to my husband of 30 years for supporting me when I was struggling with my mental health. It’s not easy for coupl