Sprout & Pea

For the longest time, I’ve been want­ing to make sweet potato fries and after whip­ping these guys up last night, I’m not quite sure what was stop­ping me. This is one of the sim­plest snacks to pre­pare and if done right, is pretty darn healthy. All you need to do is chop up some sweet pota­toes, toss with olive oil and sea­son­ings of choice and place them in the oven to bake, flip­ping once or twice. Since I had some time to kill while these were bak­ing, I thought I would make some tasty dips for my french fry dinner.

Being that Greek yogurt is my go-​​to ingre­di­ent for dips, I started there and decided to make a sweet dip and a savory one. For the sweet dip, I sim­ply driz­zled in a lit­tle agave and sprin­kled in some pump­kin pie spice for some nice fla­vor. As for the savory, I threw a baby shal­lot in with the fries to roast and half way through, took it out and placed it in the food proces­sor with Greek yogurt and some of the black gar­lic that I had left in my kitchen. The result was a tangy and savory dip with a touch of sweet. Both went per­fectly with the fries which I sea­soned with salt, pep­per, paprika and a touch of pump­kin pie spice. If you don’t have access to black gar­lic, roasted gar­lic would be great in this dip as well. Here’s how to make the fries and dips…

Sweet Potato Fries:
3 large sweet pota­toes
1/​4 cup extra vir­gin olive oil
1/​2 tsp salt
1/​2 tsp pep­per
1/​2 tsp paprika
1/​2 tsp pump­kin pie spice

Pre­heat oven to 425 degrees and bake for about 30 min­utes, flip­ping halfway through. Watch the fries towards the end to make sure they don’t burn. If you are mak­ing the black gar­lic and roasted shal­lot Greek yogurt dip below, place shal­lot (skinned and cut in half) on the pan with the fries and remove after 15 minutes.

Pump­kin Pie Spice & Agave Greek Yogurt Dip:
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 tsp pump­kin pie spice
1 tsp agave

Stir ingre­di­ents together and serve.

Black Gar­lic & Roasted Shal­lot Greek Yogurt Dip:
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 small shal­lot roasted (see above)
5 –6 cloves of black garlic

Place all ingre­di­ents in a food proces­sor, blend until smooth and serve.