Roasted Sweet Potatoes

This is the best side dish in the world, possibly besides roasted sweet potato fries. All you need is:

As many sweet potatoes as you want
Aluminum foil to wrap the sweet potatoes
A fork
Salt
Pepper (optional)
Other spices (optional)
a teaspoon of oil (optional)
An oven (definitely not optional, unless you have a BBQ)

In most recipe books that means that all you need is sweet potatoes because it's assumed that you'll have the rest. Geez, you don't even need a baking sheet. I used a knife because I wanted to shorten the cooking time, but you don't even need that. You certainly don't need a knife to eat the result. They will be soft and taste like candy.

Instructions:
1. Wash the sweet potatoes. Don't you dare peel them. The skin is the best part.

2. Prick the sweet potatoes with a fork (they'll explode in the oven if you don't prick them...)

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. Sprinkle the sweet potatoes with the salt and pepper (and oil if you want, but you don't need it). I actually sprinkled them with sake even though you don't actually need any liquid, because that's what I had leftover from the Asian-Inspired Dinner Party...you'll see an antena of that part in the corner of the picture above...recipe post to come...

You can also add other spices, like the ones you would use to make sweet potato fries, like paprika, cayenne, oregano, basil, garlic powder. Almost anything, but keep it simple the first time and experiment after you've had your first success. The potatoes are great plain, or served with butter. The melted butter made a whole lot of sense with the antenna part of the meal (see bottom right corner of photo above)...I also had a bit of chili-garlic paste left over that I used as a kind of dip...mmm...garlic.

5. Wrap the sweet potatoes in aluminum foil (shiny side facing in. The shiny metal in theory keeps the heat in and roasts the sweet potatoes more evenly, instead of reflecting the heat out of the foil), tightly, and place directly into the oven. Roast until tender, about an hour and 15 minutes. You can also roast at a higher temperature, say 425 degrees, and cut the roasting time to about 45 minutes, but I like the long and slow version and I actually had enough time for once. If you want them to cook a fair bit faster, or you just don't want whole roasted sweet potatoes, cut them into similarly-sized pieces before wrapping them in foil. You can wrap them individually or in packets.

6. The sweet potatoes are done when you open the foil and you can easily insert a fork into the flesh. They shouldn't be too mushy and falling apart, but they should be softened. Just like baked regular potato. In fact, you can make this recipe with any kind of potato, but the sweetness is amazing...Also sweet potatoes have a higher water content, I'm pretty sure, so they cook faster.

Enjoy summer and sweet potatoes and barbecuing!!!