Recipe #8 - Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Good evening Readers! Since it's around dinner time today, I figured I could post about one of my favorite dinner side dishes: baked sweet potato fries! Sweet potatoes are a often ignored food until Thanksgiving comes around but they have some wonderful attributes which made them a year-round food for us. Packed with vitamin C and anti-inflammatory agents, sweet potatoes are a healthier and more beneficial food than are regular russet type potatoes. For more information on the nutritional value of sweet potatoes, check out this site.

French fries are the classic, go-to side for burgers, hot dogs and many other dinner time staples but with the amount of grease that they're fried in, a small (7oz) serving of "family style" fries (like those you'd get at a restaurant) have an incredible 607 calories and 30g of fat (check here for more nutritional info on french fries)! That's nearly than half of the recommended serving of fat per day (46%) for a side dish!

I don't like those numbers (for my Little OR for myself) so I started looking into baking fries for my family rather than deep or pan frying. After a few pans of burnt sweet potatoes and a little research, I've put together a recipe that my Little love and I think is pretty tasty as well:

3 sweet potatoes, peeled and washed and sliced into fries
2 tbsp olive oil or olive oil spray (either one works)
1 tsp Lawry's seasoned salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

1.) Preheat oven to 400°
2.) Coat sweet potato fries evenly with olive oil and spices
3.) Place fries on a cookie sheet, leaving space between all of the fries (make sure none of them are touching or they won't bake correctly)
4.) Bake for 30-40 minutes, turning once half way through bake time. Bake 30 minutes for softer fries, 40 for crispier fries.
5.) Allow to cool slightly before serving with your favorite sauce

Something fun we did the last time was to cut the sweet potatoes into different shapes. We sliced them very thinly first, then started making stars, squares, circles, and triangles. This was fun because our Little was identifying the shapes before cramming them into her mouth! Have fun, eat well and enjoy!

Cheers,
Jo Anna