Spiced Sweet Potato Fries

It's been well over a week since my last post, and that's because Jeremy and I went on a trip to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia for our five-year anniversary. We had a great time, and had originally only planned on being there for five days, but our flight back to LA was cancelled due to an abrupt snowstorm, (there was even thundersnow!), and we ended up spending a whole week there. I've been reading a lot of biographies and histories about the founding fathers and colonialism lately so it was really nice to be able to see some of the historic places that I'd been reading about, like Independence Hall, Monticello and Mount Vernon. While we were there, we also ate a LOT of good food. We made a spontaneous stop at the Moo-Thru drive-through ice cream shop in rural Virginia on the way back from Monticello. Looking back, it was definitely one of the best choices I've ever made. The ice cream there was made from cow's milk from a dairy farm about a mile from the stand, so the ice cream had a really thick and stretchy texture and a wonderfully rich taste that I'd never experienced before in an ice cream. Another great place we stopped at was Bus Boys and Poets, a coffee shop/restaurant/book store in DC. We had some great Mediterranean burgers and, of course, a side of sweet potato fries. Tadaaaahhh! I had forgotten how much I loved sweet potato fries, and so when I got back I of course immediately went to the grocery store and bought some to put this recipe together. After I peeled the potatoes I was kind of surprised that they were yellow-fleshed inside instead of orange, which is what all the sweet potato fries I had previously had looked like. But after doing some thorough online wiki-ing, I discovered that sweet potatoes come in a variety of colors. So if your sweet potatoes are white, orange, or yellow-fleshed, do not worry, it is still a sweet potato and not some other strange sort of tuber. Hope you all enjoy these as much as I do!

Ingredients:

Two Large Sweet Potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch by 4 inch sticks

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper

1/4 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

1/4 Teaspoon Paprika

1/4 Teaspoon Cumin

1/4 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the sweet potato pieces in a large bowl, add the olive oil, and stir until the potato pieces are evenly coated in the oil. Add the spices and mix well until they are evenly distributed over the potato pieces.

Place the sweet potato pieces flat on a large baking sheet, drizzling any remaining oil over the top. Spread the pieces out over the top of the baking sheet and put it in the oven. Allow to bake for 15 minutes, then remove the tray, flip the pieces over, and place the tray back in the oven for another 10 minutes. You can then remove the tray from the oven and serve the sweet potato fries immediately, or, if you want the fries to be extra-crispy, you can then turn the oven up to 475 degrees Fahrenheit and leave them in for another 3-5 minutes, watching closely to make sure that they don't over-crisp and burn.