Lemony Maple Sweet Potatoes (Allegedly from Jennifer Garner's Kitchen)

She calls it "Lemony Maple Sweet Potatoes"...I call it a SAHM's (stay at home mom's) "necessity recipe". 
From the day your little bundle of joy starts choking down solids your cabinets will house an array of this miracle vegetable.  From pureed to mashed and eventually cubed expect your budget to include a fair share of stock in sweet potatoes.
It isn't a secret that when you become a mom you gain one very mystical and amazing new piece of you but in that laborious transformation you also lose an important commodity...Time.  So preparing meals for your family and yourself requires a little bit of creativity. 
From start to finish prep time on this food gem takes less time than changing your little one's diaper.  That is unless you are unfortunate enough to have a tumbler on your hands like I do.  This child of mine, now just shy of sixteen months, hates to have his diaper changed.  The only thing that manages to make this required activity bearable is allowing him to play with "something" while I am in the mist of the dirty transaction.  This "something" has ranged from a toy of his, my cell phone, a dog toy or whatever is within arms reach.  I rarely discriminate on the choice of this "something".  I mean how much damage could actually be caused in a few mere seconds of hands on activity with a baby powder container from the nearby diaper bag?  Okay, actually a lot of damage.  On to the actual recipe...

Ingredients needed:

2 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" x 2" chunks
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
2 tbsp. maple syrup
2 tbsp. lemon juice

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Toss sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper in a large glass baking dish.
3. Cook until almost tender, 25 to 30 minutes.
4. Whisk syrup and lemon juice in a small bowl.
5. Remove the potatoes from the oven and drizzle 1/2 maple-lemon mixture over potatoes.
6. Stir gently, return to oven, and bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender and golden brown.
7.  Remove from oven, drizzle with remaining maple-lemon mixture and serve.

Well, this mom magic recipe may belong to Jennifer Garner (as it was featured in the most recent publication of People Magazine) but now it also belongs to us, the extremely tired and often under appreciated SAHMs.
I found this valuable piece of kitchen know how to be amazingly delicious and watching my little one feeding himself sweet potato cubes makes a mommy and her budget real proud!