Yam Fries

Hi!!! I'm sorry it's been so long since my previous blog, but I was sick for a while and there was some craziness of me interviewing for a job. I'm glad to report that after over a year and a half, I am finally employed!!! Yaay for me!

I joined a local CSA (community supported agriculture) a few months ago and I LOVE it! The fruits and vegetables I get every week are all in season, locally grown and I'm pretty sure organic. I enjoy getting different things almost every week as it expands my cooking repertoire.

For example, we've been getting rhubarb for the past few weeks. I've NEVER cooked with rhubarb before, never even thought about buying it; but since I had it, I had to figure out what do with it. I didn't have enough to make a rhubarb pie; sauteing it didn't hold any appeal and I couldn't figure out what else to do with it. I woke up the next morning and was craving pancakes and voila! I made rhubarb pancakes! They were quite yummy, with just a hint of sourness and perfect with some butter and syrup! YUMM!

The other thing I like about my CSA is that part of the proceeds go towards the garden at the neighborhood school so kids can learn about farming and gardening.

Here's a sample of the CSA haul.


So onto the main subject of today's topic: yams. My namesake. I got these in my CSA for two weeks straight and haven't done anything with them. Finally I got tired of looking at them and decided ok tonight is the night that I'm doing something with them! The easiest thing is to make fries. This is the first time I've made them, but it's the same concept as sweet potato fries, isn't it? They should turn out fine (let's hope!).
I cut the yams (and one sweet potato) into thin wedges and sprinkled with olive oil, salt and some chili pepper that my good friend John got me from Turkey.

I spread out the fries on a baking sheet and put it in a 350 degree oven. They baked for about 20 minutes and then I jacked up the heat to 380 degrees. They were cooked within the 20 minutes, but I wanted to crisp them up a bit. They are in the oven as I'm writing this and it is smelling wonderful! Just a warm sweet potato smell going through the whole house.

Ok the fries just came out of the oven and I had a quick taste. I almost burnt my mouth b/c I couldn't wait.

They look good and smell good, but would I make them again? Nope. Chalk this one up to experience. They're not bad, but just not as flavorful as I thought they would be. Apparently there is a HUGE difference between sweet potatoes and yams. I would definitely try this with sweet potatoes next time, but not with yams. I'll just have to come up with something else to do with the yams for next time.