Sweet Potato Fries

Do you ever have days when the dinner combination is just...awkward?  Like cereal with a side of broccoli or spaghetti with a side of baked beans?  Well tonight, our odd combo was fajitas and sweet potato fries.  I don't know how this happened!  I am usually very organized in the dinner department, but fajitas were scheduled for tonight, and I also had a huge sweet potato that seemed like a great idea in the grocery store last Thursday, but we are running out of opportunities to use it (#OBnightshift-any twitter people out there?  No one? oh well).  So whatever, fajitas and sweet potato fries.  Could be worse.

It's super easy to make your own "fries"at home, in the oven, which is clearly more healthful than frying them in a gallon of oil, or buying them in the frozen section (those have been pre-fried a lot of times).  It works great with either regular potatoes or sweet potatoes.  It just requires some knife skills, a hot oven, and any number of seasoning combinations.

You could use a mandolin or just a sharp knife to cut the potato into rounds (if using a mandolin, USE THE GUARD and throw away the end that gets too short to use...from personal experience, it gets bloody if you don't, and blood is not a fry topper option, sorry).  Or, you could cut the potato into "fry-shaped" planks.  Cut the potato along the equator, then stand it up.  Cutting longitudinally, make sections that are around 1/2" thick.  Lay those pieces down, and cut longitudinally again for strips.  Here, I'll show you.

I like them with ketchup, but you could make up a creamy dip (my mom likes to combine light mayo or sour cream, lemon zest, and garlic...yum!  you could substitute fat free plain yogurt here as well).  As another idea, you could make sweet ones, by tossing them with olive oil, salt, sugar, and cinnamon.  That's a nice fall side dish idea!

Sweet Potato Fries
-serves 2

1 large sweet potato
Salt, Pepper, olive oil, and any other seasonings (see below for combinations)

Preheat oven to 425, and line a baking sheet with foil.  Spray with cooking spray.  Cut a washed potato into thin rounds, or thin planks.  Dump on baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil and generous amounts of seasoning.  Bake for 30 minutes, turning a few times, until golden brown and delicious.  Let cool (will crisp up a bit), and serve!

Flavor possibilities
-seasoned pepper, garlic salt, and chili powder (what I did tonight)
-Italian seasoning (tossing with parmesan cheese in the last few minutes of cooking)
-cinnamon sugar (don't serve these with ketchup....)
-Grill seasoning and crushed red pepper flakes