spicy baked sweet potato fries

so joe & i try to avoid white potatoes at all cost and i would never have said i am a sweet potato person. i am however a "fry" person and given that we [with very, very rare exceptions] gave up fried food that doesn't happen too much either! however, on two recent instances i have had baked sweet potato fries and loved them!

this week we recreated the magic and tried to get some lessons learned from our past two experiences.

one thing is that sweet potatoes once you cut them all up make a lot of fries. below is two moderately sized sweet potatoes and their fry offspring!


what you need:
-2 sweet potatoes
-extra virgin olive oil
-salt
-pepper
-seasonings of your choice (crushed red pepper, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder...or all of the above)...i would recommend no more than 1 TBSP total of all flavors combined. it looks like a little but the cornstarch holds it on big time!
-3 tablespoons of cornstarch

what you do: 
this is where it got a bit interesting...cut the ends of the potatoes off so that you don't have odd shaped ends and then slice to about 1/4" by 1/4" and the length of the potato...easy enough. then for at least an hour [& up to overnight] soak [yes...in water...] the cut fries.

preheat oven to 450 degrees. pat off with paper towels after their good soak. line 2 baking sheets with foil and spray with cooking spray. put in a big ziploc the fries, oil, salt, pepper, cornstarch & spices. shake well.

line neatly [not all on top of each other] on a baking sheet. put on the top rack of your oven for 15 minutes then turn the fries and do 15 more.

if they're getting too crispy too quickly, turn down the oven a bit to 400 or 425...we all know how to monitor the cooking process! they very suddenly get cooked and sometimes too much at the end so pull them out before you get them charred!

one caveat that most don't know about sweet potatoes is their nutritional benefits. 1 cup of sweet potatoes can has 2 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber and virtually fat free. many mommies to be are mindful of certain vitamins, including vitamin A which these are loaded with.  if you're watching out for that, be mindful of where else you're getting it that day [if you have it included in your prenatal vitamins, other foods like broccoli & spinach, etc]. the recommended daily intake is about 2500IU and 1 cup of sweet potato has upwards of 6000IU