Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Tonight's episode:
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Spicy Sweet Potato Oven Fries! I began by peeling a couple of big white sweet potatoes, but you can use the orange sweet potatoes or even regular potatoes if you like. Then I cut them into French Fry-like shapes and I put them in a pan with some water and I boiled them until they were all fork tender.While the sweet potatoes boiled I got out some spices and I got out my big mortar and pestle. Let me put a plug in here for stores like TJ Maxx and Ross and Tuesday Morning. I love discount stores like those because I always find such great things there. I got that big mortar and pestle set for $29, anywhere else it would have been like fifty or a hundred bucks, at TJ Maxx, I got that big bottle of sea salt at Tuesday Morning, and I found that bottle of sweet Spanish Paprika at Ross. But I digress. I mixed a tablespoon and a half of crushed black pepper, a tea spoon of sea salt, two teaspoon of paprika, a half tea spoon of cumin, a heaping teaspoon of chili powder (not the hot variety), and a dash of that powdered cheese spice and I mixed it all up using my big mortar and pestle. Then when the potatoes were fork tender I covered the bottom of a 13 by 13 pyrex pan with extra virgin olive oil and I covered the potatoes with the spice mixture and I spread them out in the pan. I turned the oven on to high broil and I stuck the potatoes in. You don't need to broil the potatoes if you don't want, since they are already done, but since I'm off deep fried foods I like to broil them to make them a little bit crispy. Here they are before I broiled them. And that's what they looked like after. Not much difference in looks but there is a big difference in texture. I served the sweet potatoes with some big ass salmon cakes and a salad. Mmmmm, it was good.

You can buy the cheese spice I used in this recipe, and a shit load of other spices as well, by clicking here. We discovered Satan's Breath Spices on our first trip to the Atlantic Beach/Morehead City area of North Carolina. The guy who owns and runs the place also mixes the spices and he is a super nice guy and I highly recommend his Chinese Five Spice mix as well as the cheese spice I used in this recipe.