Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries and Friday Night Leftovers

Let me begin by making a quick confession:

I like Southern cuisine (as long as there's no seafood involved).

And the sweet potato seems to be quite the staple in Southern dishes. That and okra, which tends to have a slimy, weird texture that I'd rather not think about. People down here seem to find many, many uses for sweet potatoes, a delicacy I had not encountered until college... in a dining hall, no less. Since that fateful day in 1999, I have done my homework on this fabulous root vegetable.

I present to you a few fun facts on the sweet potato (whose color just so happens to go well with the color scheme of my favorite holiday-guess which one):

--Sweet potatoes are native to tropical parts of South America and were domesticated there 5000 years ago!

--Sweet potatoes were grown before Western exposure to the Polynesian Islands, possibly by travelers in airtight boats (I added that last part)

-The genus that contains the sweet potato is manifested in flower form as Morning Glories.

see Wikipedia for more exciting info on the Sweet Potato (c'mon, you know you want to!)

Tonight, we needed some Friday Night food, so rather than elbow our way through Atlanta's notoriously bad traffic, we stayed home, we took our leftover London Broil meat
(see Yorkshire Pudding Post), we made sandwiches similar to Phillies, and we topped it off with

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. light brown sugar
1/2 tsp. kosher salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil greased with cooking spray.

Halve the sweet potatoes lengthwise and cut each half into long spears. (Soak in cold water for 20-30 minutes before continuing for crispy texture outside. Drain well and pat dry.) Place the potato spears on the sheet pan and toss with olive oil. Spread them in a single layer. Combine the brown sugar, salt, and pepper and sprinkle on the potatoes. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn with a spatula or tongs. Bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Sprinkle lightly with kosher salt and serve hot.

As for the Philly-ish Subs, I took some London broil meat, turned it over to Hank to chop with his meat cleaver, sauteed some mushrooms with a dash of lemon juice to make it pop, along with some onions to keep Hank feeling stable, toasted the inside of a couple of sub rolls, tossed Muenster cheese in the mix, and then ATE THE TAR OUT OF IT!

It was good, so good. And this post has grown long, so long...