First (home cooked) meal in Lubbock

As most of you know, I have recently moved to Lubbock, Texas. Because my stuff came this weekend, I am now able to cook again. I am still very limited in what I can do, because I have not unpacked all my stuff yet (let alone organized it) and because my stove doesn't work (new one comes on Thursday). But, I was still able to cook today using stuff I packed (grill and toaster oven). Today's recipe is oven-baked sweet potato "fries".

First, the cast of characters... We have a sweet potato (1-2 people per sweet potato, depending on appetite and potato size), kosher salt, cumin, cayenne pepper, olive oil, and black pepper (not pictured). I chose this particular combination of spices because I had unpacked them (I've since unpacked the rest of my spices) and because I sometimes like to combine sweet and spicy.


Basically, I cut the sweet potato into wedges and tossed it with olive oil (enough to coat), a decent amount of kosher salt, about a half teaspoon of cumin and black pepper, and a quarter teaspoon (I think) of cayenne pepper. I then placed them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and baked them at 450° for 25-minutes, turning once. They were not as crispy as fried fries, but were quite good nonetheless. We have made these before (using cinnamon, salt, and honey as flavoring) and baked them at a lower temperature and gotten really soggy fries, so I think the higher temperature was key.

I served these fries with a chicken breast marinated in zesty Italian salad dressing and grilled.


Also, there's a pint of a wheat beer that I got from a local microbrewery that helped complete this summertime feast.

PS - now that Z is no longer in the same state as I am, the quality of my pictures has dramatically decreased. This is a combination of having to use a point and shoot camera instead of the DSLR that she's been teaching us all how to use and not having her awesome photography and processing skills.