Sweet & Spicy Sweet Potatoes

I decided it's time to eat more vegetables. Last night, I was looking to make a sweet potato side dish. Looking through Allrecipes, most sweet potato dishes were of the candied variety - not what I was looking for. Then I came upon this awesome recipe. I think I could eat it everyday.

Here's my version:

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

olive oil

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1.5 T paprika

0.5 t black pepper

0.5 t onion powder

0.5 t garlic powder

0.5 t chili powder

pinch of cayenne pepper

salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Coat the potatoes in a little oil (or a lot of if you're not trying to be healthy). Cook in the microwave. Mix up the spices. After the potatoes are mostly cooked, toss them in the spices. And bake on a cookie sheet coated with oil or cooking spray for about 15-20 minutes til they are a little crunchy. Enjoy!

Skip the microwave step, if you're not in a hurry. With the microwave, it took me 25 minutes, start to dinner.

I ate these for dinner with pork last night and again this morning with eggs for breakfast. Delicious!

Natural Buffalo Chicken Dip without dressing

In honor of Superbowl Sunday, I've been searching high and low for a good buffalo chicken dip recipe that doesn't use ranch or blue cheese dressing as a principle ingredient. I haven't found one that suited me very well, so I came up with my own. I think it's awesome!

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP WITHOUT DRESSING

1.5 c sour cream

8 oz cream cheese

2 c cooked, chopped chicken

1/2 c cayenne pepper hot sauce (I used Frank's Wing Sauce)

3/4 c blue cheese

Ranch seasoning:

1t dried chives

1t dried parlsey

1t dried dill

1/2t garlic powder

1/2t onion powder

1/4t salt

1/4t pepper

Mix it all up! Adjust all the quantities to taste. I used the food processor to chop my chicken 'cause I like my chicken finely chopped. If you like chunks, chop your chicken differently. Yields ~5.5 cups or so? It's a lot!

For vegetarians, leave out the chicken.

For blue cheese haters, leave out the blue cheese.

For people without spices, leave our the ranch seasoning.

For people from the midwest, use less wing sauce.