Sweet Potato Fries

Yes, you should be jealous. Doesn't this look good?? Garlic chicken, cheesy steamed broccoli, and sweet potato fries!

What's that you say? You don't like sweet potatoes? Well, my friend, the time has come for you to give them another try.

Growing up my introduction to sweet potatoes involved holidays, melted marshmallows, and forced ingestion. My father would always make those mashed sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. Blech! And then, since he always made us eat at least a small serving of everything he cooked and I never voluntarily did more than pick off the marshmallow topping, he would scrape the sweet potatoes in with the remains of the other food on my plate into one big pile and make me eat it. Nasty. It's no wonder I have always hated sweet potatoes.

And then one day my younger sister told me an amazing thing. If you treat a sweet potato like a potato and don't try to sweeten it, it's actually quite good! Several months ago I was preparing some baked fries for my family and I decided to cut up a sweet potato and give it a try. I treated it the same way I did the potatoes - only added oil and salt - and can you believe what happened? I loved it!

Sweet Potato Fries

1-2 medium sweet potatoes
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt to taste

Peel and trim sweet potatoes. Cut into fries.

Place fries in a large bowl or ziplock bag. Drizzle with olive oil and toss until evenly coated.

Cover cookie sheet with parchment paper. If you don't have parchment paper, you can use aluminum foil but you must spray with non-stick cooking spray. (If you forget to do this the fries will stick to the foil!) Place the sweet potatoes on the parchment paper or foil and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Bake in preheated oven at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes, turning fries and re-salting once during cooking. Tip: If cooking both sweet potato fries and regular fries for dinner, start cooking the regular fries about 5 minutes before adding the sweet potato fries. They don't take quite as long.