My oldest daughter and I love these sweet potato fries.  I make them every couple of weeks and they are usually gone by the end of the night.  The younger two kids either really love sweet potatoes or they can’t stand them so I usually make them as an extra dish.  They are so easy to make it doesn’t make it seem like I am doing extra work for dinner.  Some nights I start them when the younger kids are eating and then eat them as an after dinner snack instead of dessert.  It was yummy and way healthier than ice cream or cookies.

Wash sweet potatoes thoroughly with a vegetable scrubber.

I used three lovely sweet potatoes today.  We buy a gigantic bag from Costco every month or two and store them in a cool dry place.

Cut the ends off and then cut the sweet potatoes in half.  Stand each half upright on the wider end and cut it in half again.  Then slice each quarter into roughly the same thickness.

Spread your sweet potatoes on a standard cookie sheet. I used a Silpat under mine but you can also use parchment paper.  The sweet potatoes don’t have to be evenly spread and they can be touching since they will shrink as they cook.

Lightly coat your sweet potatoes with olive oil.  Ha ha! There is no actual olive oil on my brush because I didn’t want it to glop on there unevenly while I took a picture but you get the idea.  I love our silicone brush because I can just toss it in the dishwasher afterwards. Don’t ask me where we got it. My husband bought it many years ago and I have no idea where but they have similar ones on Amazon.

Sprinkle your salt and pepper. I don’t use a lot of salt in my cooking and if I add a bunch of pepper to these it is guaranteed that the little kids won’t eat them so I do a very light coat.  They do taste wonderful though if you add lots of pepper and a decent amount of salt so sometimes if I am feeling extra inspired I will make another tray for the grownups with more seasoning.  Turn your sweet potatoes over and repeat the olive oil, salt and pepper. I may forget to repeat the second side if my kids are extra distracting so you can skip this step but they taste way better with coating on both sides.  Put them in the oven for about 20 min, flip them with a fork to check tenderness and put them back into the oven for another 15-20 min.  Check them a second time. There should be a little carmelization on them but if you are feeding them to little ones it is better to leave them soft.

I made these for kids to eat tomorrow so I pulled them a little early to keep them soft  You can see some carmelization on the smaller pieces.

Yummy sweet potato juice coating the cooked fries. Let the fries cool for a few minutes and enjoy!  You could also add a pre-mixed seasoning salt to the fries or just do salt and have them be more like french fries.

I hope your family enjoys these as much as we do!  Happy cooking!

Easy Baked Sweet Potato Fries

May 9, 2017

Servings: 4-6

Prep: 10 min

Cook: 45 min

Total: 55 min

Difficulty: Easy

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Baked sweet potatoes make a great snack or side to any dinner.

By: Oscoey

Ingredients

• 3-4 Sweet Potatoes
• 1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions

• Step 1 Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees and wash your sweet potatoes thoroughly.
• Step 2 Cut off the ends of the sweet potatoes and slice them in half twice. Cut them into roughly the same width (usually 1/4″ or so) to make them fry size. The actual width doesn’t matter, just remember the thicker they are the longer they will need to cook and the softer the fries will be. I usually cut each 1/4 of a sweet potato into 4-5 slices depending on how big it is.
• Step 3 Spread your fries evenly over a standard cookie sheet. I use a Silpat under them so they do not stick.
• Step 4 Lightly coat fries with olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper.
• Step 5 Flip your fries and repeat olive oil, salt and pepper on the other side.
• Step 6 Bake sweet potatoes for 20 minutes.
• Step 7 Flip the fries with a fork and put them back into the oven for another 20-30 minutes depending on how done they are. If they are already soft put them in for 15 minutes and check them again. If some of them are still a little firm it will probably be closer to 25 or 30 minutes but check every few minutes to make sure.
• Step 8 Fries should be soft on the inside and have a little bit of carmelization on the outside. When I make them for the baby I leave them softer on the outside so he can chew them. Enjoy!

We have finally been able to make some progress on our garden this week.  Our pumpkin and sunflower seedlings are growing well and are almost ready for hardening off and transplant.  I checked this morning and the watermelon seedlings are just starting to peek through the soil. Our ground cherries have yet to sprout but I was not able to get them to germinate last year either so I will probably buy seed starts again this year at a local plant sale.  If you can I highly recommend buying plants from your local Master Gardeners group. You can just google  “Master Gardeners” with your city and find a local club.  Many put on plant sale which allows you to buy locally and also gives you a chance to talk to a gardener with experience growing the crop you are buying in your particular area. 

Last night after nap time I was able to plant the strawberries I received from my local buy nothing group and plant lettuce, zucchini, spaghetti squash, luffa, gourds and cucumbers seeds. I used this planter we bought off of Amazon for the strawberries and lettuce. I put strawberries in the lower layers and lettuce in the top two.  I wanted to save some of the strawberries to plant along the slope I want to keep from eroding.

We bought our potting soil from Costco and our local nursery.  For the seeds I used mostly potting soil and then added about 1/4-1/2 inch of seed starter to the tops of the cups.

Our current seed starting method is to use red cups with three holes cut out of the bottom (you can just use kitchen shears) purchased at Costco in a low waterproof container. Since I was planting so many seeds I used this sterilite container with 20 cups. This still left room on the side to add water to the bottom for a passive watering system. 

I added about a 1/2 inch of water to the bottom and let it sit while I planted the strawberries and lettuce.

I did have to refill it again since the soil was pretty dry.  After I refilled it I poked two seeds into each cup and labeled them with wooden sticks. I bought ours at a local craft store but mine are almost gone so I will be ordering a gigantic pack from Amazon pretty soon.  You can use anything you want to label your seeds and since I didn’t use a waterproof pen to label mine I will probably be able to wash them and use them again.  Since I did not have enough sticks to label all of my cups I just labeled the first row of each.  Hopefully I won’t mix the cups up…

Here are the seeds I used.  They are just regular seeds bought from the grocery store except I ordered Luffa and gourd seeds from the Burpee website. They had a free shipping special on seeds and I did not have time to look around for luffa seeds since they are not common.  I have this idea that we will grow our own luffa sponges and make bird houses out of the gourds but I have no idea if they will actually grow so it will be a fun experiment.

I rearranged our seed shelf in the laundry room so that the new seeds would fit, sprayed the tops of the new cups with water so that the seed starter would not dry out and let them bask in the glow of the light.  All of them should germinate in 7-14 days and I am excited for them to come up!

A close up of the seed cups. The lack of waterproof marker caused the writing to run when I sprayed them with water but I can still read them so we are all good.

Today we spent some family time in the garden getting it ready for our seed starts and doing general clean up.  We live in a heavily treed area and there is a constant need for leaf blowing.  Here is the area where we are planting most of our vegetables.  The previous planter from last year has had it’s soil turned over and I weeded and raked the area where the new planter box will go.

We bought our planter box off of Amazon. It is a little smaller than I pictured but you can add another one on top of it to make it deeper.  We will probably buy another one to add to the top next year.  It was super easy to assemble and our kids loved helping with it.

We placed the second one slightly farther away from the driveway so that we have a bit more space.  I may plant our sunflowers along the driveway since I don’t want them shading out our planter boxes but I haven’t decided yet.  We will add dirt sometime in the next couple of weeks when we can borrow a truck to haul it.

I am really happy with our progress in the garden this week. Next week we are planting our tomato starts we got from Costco and looking at adding our seed starts to the garden.  I also need to direct sow our carrots and install a pest management fence around the vegetable garden which we can hopefully complete in the next couple of weeks.

What do you have going on in your garden this week?

The leaves are just starting to come out on our plants and bulbs are beginning to come up. I thought I would post some pictures from around the garden to show the current state it is in. Most of the plants in our garden are ornamental. The previous owners planted several of each type to run their flower business.  We had about 10 hydrangeas and heavenly bamboos, several azaelas, fuchsias and honeysuckles and a large number of both male and female skimmias. They all require a lot of maintenance to keep them trimmed and looking nice which I am not so excited about.  We have given away about 20 of the smaller ones, mostly in the front garden area and along the side of the house but as you can see in the pictures there are still many more left.  I am hesitant to remove too many of them since we have a very healthy bee population I don’t want to disturb.

We have a relatively isolated front bed we will eventually turn into a vegetable garden.  Currently there is some sort of tree, some white and purple butterfly bushes, some heavenly bamboo, some succulents that take over everything and several other low growing flowers. Last year we cleared a large section of it and installed a vegetable bed we inherited from our neighbor (free garden supplies are my favorite!). Our plans this year are to add another vegetable box next to the first one and to install a fence to help with pest management.  Last year all of our starts except for tomatoes, beans and hot peppers were eaten. I am slightly discouraged by the holes I keep finding in the ground and when we turned the soil in our first garden bed. Please don’t make the same mistake as I did and let your children turn the bed by themselves..I found a large amount of our “good” soil squashed in with the “bad” stuff all around our garden bed. I may need to add more this year so it isn’t too shallow.  We will be growing tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, peppers and carrots in these beds. I have also started sunflowers and watermelons but they will be planted in the ground.

I would also like to work on the South side of the house but we are experiencing some drainage issues there so they need to be resolved before we can start. I am torn between several ideas.  I would love to add a greenhouse along this side, but we also need a play structure for the kids and somewhere to put chickens…my list is long and usable space is small since we are on a slope.  As you can see the yard is a bit of a mess right now.  We badly need to put down a weed barrier and mulch everything but time is a huge issue for us. I am also trying to do everything as frugally as possible and reuse materials whenever we can.  We are having a tree removed asap and I am hoping they will be able to provide us with some wood chips to spread along the pathway to prevent further erosion.

My two gigantic hydrangea bushes in the front are beginning to leaf.  I love these bushes.  Last year they were covered in gigantic blue flower clusters.  We had hydrangeas on the kitchen table for months.  My daughter would carry them around the yard shaking them like pom poms and yelling at the top of her lungs.  It was the best free entertainment for both her and us.  She is hilarious.  I can’t wait for this year when she teaches the baby how to shake the “ya yas”. He will love it. As you can see, this bed needs some TLC. I have trimmed two of the sword ferns, yanked out the opportunistic succulent starts and weeded, and weeded and weeded.  It still is covered in weeds.  I am going to mulch this bed for sure this year.  On the street side is our asparagus and some herbs my husband planted.  We will also be installing a fence at some point that will cut through this bed so it will need a little rearranging.

I also took some time today to check out our fruit trees and bushes.  Our combination apple tree that we planted last year is beginning to leaf out.  We recently planted an Asian pear and a pear combo that we got at Costco (our favorite place to shop) that look like in another week or so will begin to leaf.  I was very pleased and a little worried that our Shortcake raspberry (planted last year) is spreading farther out than I thought it would.  It is supposed to be small and compact, great for containers but I found several starts surrounding it. I may move it to a container to prevent further spreading since I also was gifted some large raspberry canes from a local Buy Nothing group member.  I have no idea what variety they are but I know for sure they will spread so I placed them temporarily in the garden until I can make a box for them. Our blueberries are beginning to leaf and we are waiting to plant our third one until after I gift a white hydrangea left over from the previous owners.

Whew. I didn’t even get to the back yard today and already my list is super long. Happy gardening!