Some sweet potatoes for my sweetie

I am not a cook.  In fact, I am perfectly happy eating cereal for two out of three meals a day, which is exactly what I have done for most of the past year.  But now that Sammy is eating more and more table food I've been trying to make a concerted effort to make more meals from scratch that are tasty and good for us.  So to that end, I decided to try my hand at making baked sweet potato fries, especially since Sammy seems to love anything with sweet potatoes in it; I also was looking for any excuse to test out my vintage fry cutter.  For someone who doesn't like to cook, I have a rather weird obsession with accruing random kitchen gadgets.  But I digress--back to the oh-so-delicious fries:

I prepped the sweet potatoes by washing them and then peeling them (I knew from previous experiences with sweet potatoes that Sammy has trouble eating the skins); I then attempted to cut the sweet potatoes using my vintage french fry cutter.   If you are ever on the lookout for an upper body workout, I highly suggest cutting fries the old-fashioned way.  It was way more difficult than I expected; thank goodness I was only cutting up three sweet potatoes.  Before you begin cutting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place all of the cut pieces of sweet potato into a large ziploc bag.  In a small bowl whisk together one egg white and one teaspoon of olive oil until frothy; pour this into the  bag then add 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and seal up the bag and then shake to coat the fries (feel free to add more; I was trying to keep the flavor light for Sammy's sake).  Once everything is good and coated, shake out the fries into a single layer onto a baking sheet (if you want to cut down on your clean-up time, line the baking sheet with parchment paper) and then bake for thirty minutes or until the fries are nice and crisp.

The smell that came wafting through the house while these things baked in the oven was absolutely incredible.  Just thinking about it has me salivating.  I didn't use parchment paper when I made this batch, which led to the fries being a little less crisp (and to one heck of a post-dinner clean-up), but the softer texture was just about perfect for Sammy.  I put a handful of fries on his tray and watched nervously as he took his first bite.  The kid inhaled every single fry within his grasp.  He probably would have licked his tray clean had the thought occurred to him. 

I think these are going to be making a regular appearance on the menu at Chez L to the Third.