It’s often been said that “variety is the spice of life” and I think that’s a pretty fair statement. Allergies or certain dietary restrictions aside, this is especially true when it comes to food.
What follows is a pretty simple recipe that should come in handy if you want to expand your horizons a bit and are tired of eating the same old boring french fries with your meal of choice. I’ve made a version or two of these over the years just to break the monotony of sitting down to the same thing time after time, year after year.
Here’s what you need:
About one pound of sweet potatoes
About a half a teaspoon of paprika
Half a teaspoon of salt (optional but highly recommended)
One tablespoon of olive oil (doesn’t need to be the fancy kind)
Here’s what you do:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 C)
Peel and rinse the sweet potatoes and cut them into circles or horizontally
Drizzle them with the olive oil and place them on a baking sheet
Sprinkle them evenly with the salt and paprika
Bake them for about 15 minutes or so and then flip them over and bake them for another 5 to 10 minutes
Remove them from the oven and dig in
If you’re feeling especially adventurous, while the sweet potatoes are baking in the oven you might want to try and make some dipping sauce in place of ketchup. Since I’m a pretty simple person, here’s one I’ve used in the past to enhance the flavor of my sweet potato fries.
Plain Greek yogurt and sour cream in equal proportions
Salt and pepper to taste
See, how hard was that?
In addition to offering up a nice change of pace, fresh sweet potato fries make a healthy alternative to those boxes of frozen processed French fried potatoes most of us have lurking in the deep dark recesses of our freezer.