Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

For this recipe, I started with this recipe that I found online.  This is such an easy recipe, full of good stuff that you feel good feeding your family - which in turn makes me feel good - another win-win recipe!  I would only change ONE thing about this recipe, but I'll get to that later...

For this recipe, you'll need:

• sweet potatoes
• brown sugar
• garlic powder
• olive oil
• sea salt

Preheat oven to 450.  Wash sweet potatoes, peel, and cut up.

When your sweetie potatoes look like this, you're ready.  Doesn't take too long at all!

Here's the part I would change from the original recipe - mix together olive oil, garlic powder , and brown sugar (I used a few tbsp of olive oil, about a tablespoon of garlic powder, and a tsp of brown sugar) DO NOT add salt!!  Trust me, friends, it makes it WAY too salty!!  You're better off saving the salt to sprinkle on after roasting - you'll thank me for this tip - it will save your sweeties!!

Put sweet potatoes in the olive oil mixture and toss to coat.

Place wire racks on rimmed baking sheet and spray with cooking spray - I used olive oil spray, as usual/

Place sweeties on tray.  Because I used the wire rack, I didn't have to turn everything during cooking, which made it super easy.

Bake for 25-30 minutes - don't they look yummy??  They were delicious!  Sprinkle with a little sea salt and you're set.  Something you can feel good about!

Italian Pork Sandwiches

So life continues to get in the way of my blogging, but I promise, this recipe is worth the wait!  It's easy, it's different from my normal fare, and my family LOVED it!  Winner winner, pork chops for dinner!  (I couldn't resist :)

I got this recipe from my trusty edition of Everyday Food magazine.  This was the first recipe I've tried from the magazine and it was SO yummy!  In fact, the next few recipes will be from Everyday Food, and they're ALL yummy!!  Let the feasting begin!

For these yummy sandwiches, you'll need:  

• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup dried breadcrumbs (I used Panko, the japanese breadcrumbs, bc that's what I had, but you could use any kind.  I really liked how the panko turned out, though)
• coarse salt and ground pepper (used regular salt bc I'm out of my grinder at present)
• 4 pork cutlets (Original recipe called for the 4 cutlets, I ended up using about 6 thin sliced pork cutlets, this made it super easy to fry up)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced (I used provolone bc that's what I had)
• 4 ciabatta rolls (I couldn't find ciabatta, so I used some fresh rolls from the bakery - they were perfect!)
• 1 cup marinara, warmed
• 2 cups arugula (I didn't use arugula bc I thought my people wouldn't eat arugula.  Of course, that led to my husband saying he would eat arugula when it came to dinnertime - so now I know ha)

Place flour, egg, and breadcrumbs in three separate dishes.  Season flour and breadcrumbs with salt & pepper (and garlic powder if you're me).  Coat pork in flour, shaking off excess, dip in egg, then coat with breadcrumbs, pressing into meat.  Place pork on wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet (more on that later).  Your fingers will get good & coated with flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, as well - that just means you're doing it right!

Turn on your oven broiler.  Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high.  Cook pork until a deep golden brown, about 3 minutes, flipping halfway through.  It took me about 3 batches to cook all the pork, and since I was using 6 pieces of pork, I had to add a little more oil at the end.  

Doesn't that look yummy??  Can you smell it through the computer??  Because it's that good!!

I lined a plate with paper towels and put the cooked pork on it to drain for about a minute.  Top pork with a slice of cheese & broil cheese until melted (about a minute, or if you're like me - about 3 minutes, forget about it, almost burn it, then pull it out of the oven just in time.  I digress...)

Place pork chop on roll and top with marinara.  This picture doesn't do it justice - this sandwich is delicious!  More on those sweet potato fries to come...

Solutions

Sometimes the world's problems can be solved by a huge pot of homemade tomato meat sauce.  Pretty sure I'm onto something here.