Dinner at our House - Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I read blogs about home decor, fashion, food...all sorts of things. As you can tell, this blog has no particular focus, and this post will be no different. Joe and I work long days and commute about 40 minutes each way. This leaves us with little motivation to put together decent meals at night. Lucky for our waist bands, we don't live near many restaurants anymore so we try and make sure we eat at home the majority of the time. All of that considered, we tend to stick with some quick and easy meal staples (pizza, pasta, chicken, beans & franks, etc.) but occasionally we will try and spice things up.

I've been wanting to incorporate sweet potatoes into our diet since I've always heard how nutritious they are. Joe is not really a fan of the sweet potato so I attempted to ease him into it. I googled "baked sweet potato fries" recipes and saw that many people commented on how delicious they were and how non-sweet potato eaters even liked them. Bingo! I also agreed to eat steak with them (something I don't agree to very often) so Joe would at least be distracted if the fries were a bust. There are a ton of recipes out there but I decided on one from the blog Sarah's Cucina Bella mainly because I already had these ingredients:

1 - 1 1/2 lb sweet potatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (preferably the easy release kind).

Peal the sweet potatoes. Cut into strips that are about 1/2 inch wide on each side.

Place the sweet potatoes into a resealable plastic bag. Add oil, salt, paprika and cinnamon. Seal the bag and shake well to thoroughly coat the fries. Spread the potatoes out onto the baking sheet in a single layer.

Cook for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes, until slightly browned. Transfer immediately to a paper towel lined plate and serve warm.

We paired them with petite filets. Joe and I really liked them! I'm not making them again, though, until someone buys me a potato cuter - phew! It's a lot of work to cut the potatoes down to fries with just a knife.

I obviously need some practice taking food pictures! And please note, our plates are huge which makes the scale of the food look a little off here. Regardless, you should give this recipe a try, even if you are a little scared of the sweet potato - we are glad we did!

Paul's Visit

Sgt. Evans (my brother) was stateside for his mid-tour break so Joe and I were in Delaware this past weekend. We enjoyed a lovely crab feast care of the Evans'. Good food. Good company. Good times.


We also went out in my Dad's boat and treated ourselves to a delicious lunch at Suicide Bridge. The boat had a minor hiccup on the way back, broke down, and left us wondering if we'd ever get home, but after some sweet talk and a little patience, she started back up again and returned us safely to the mainland.


Paul starts his journey back to Afghanistan today to finish out his last four months there. We hope that the time will past fast and he'll be safe (avoid any permanent injury caused by muffin impact).

Soon-to-be parents of a brand new Dyson

Finally the time has come...we've cashed in our credit card points for a Dyson vacuum cleaner! Not just any Dyson either - it's the one with the ball that can "turn on a dime." I never thought I'd be the type to get excited over an appliance, especially one that is used for cleaning, but I'm at the edge of my seat waiting for it to arrive at our front door. All the better, we didn't have to shell $500 out of pocket to have it. I hope Midnight's cat hair is no match for my high powered sucking machine.


And as to not hurt the feelings of our old vacuum cleaner which is still truckin', we will likely keep it around for days when I'm too lazy to carry our new addition up and down our four flights of stairs. We've had our classy purple and red Hoover Fusion for over 2 years now and while we've managed to break pretty much every attachment the thing has, it still does the job. For something that was less than $100, you can't ask for much more.

Credit card points are a wonderful thing. If you have a credit card that earns points, we have some tips for accumulating big numbers:

1. Buy absolutely everything using your credit card. No item is too big or too small. We've charged a pack of gum and as much of a down payment on our new car as the dealership would let us.*
2. Give people that judge you for not carrying cash dirty looks. We don't see the point in using the green stuff unless absolutely necessary. We avoid establishments that don't take credit card (eh hem...gelato cart at the National's game). Get with the times!
3. Join all special programs. Bank of America (our credit card) has paired up with tons of different websites to offer you double, triple, or quadruple your points just by shopping online. All you have to do is follow the links from their website. I earned triple the points for most of the furniture I've bought off Target.com.

*Laura and Joe Plus Zero does not encourage credit card debt. Have the money to pay off your credit card.

Confession

I just finished watching the Sex and the City series all the way through for at least the fourth time. My loving husband joined me for most of the journey...again. (And he didn't lose any man points for doing so if you ask me!) What can I say...we love it!

"You're the loves of her life and a guy's just lucky to come in fourth." ~ Mr. Big

My love affair began pre-marriage back in March of 2006. Never having had HBO, I decided to rent the first disk in the SATC series to find out what all the hype was about. I was hooked from that point on. I wasted months of our Netflix subscription renting every last disk. We then moved on to different fascinations like the equally addicting Six Feet Under series but, I missed my SATC girls. Luckily, Joe hooked me up with the entire collection as a birthday surprise a couple years ago.

"Think about it. If you are single, after graduation there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you. ... Hallmark doesn't make a "congratulations, you didn't marry the wrong guy" card. And where's the flatware for going on vacation alone?" ~ Carrie

As I come down from the thrill of the fourth time through, I find myself looking up the NYC tour and wondering how common it is for husbands to crash the party. I just don't know if anyone else would appreciate such a thing! At least there is the movie sequel to look forward to (which I hope WILL NOT include Jennifer Hudson and WILL include John Corbett...hey, a girl can dream!)

Congrats Christina & Ed!

My coworker/friend/wbff Christina just got engaged...yay! Ed popped the question via an engraved IPOD birthday gift during dinner.


I had a small part in making sure the bride-to-be got a good rock but I think Ed did a good job on his own!

Congratulations!!!!!

Forever Young

I still love not working on Fridays and it's especially nice when a holiday is thrown into the mix and I get a much needed four days off. Thank you Independence Day. To start, Joe and I decided to take a trip down to Williamsburg for a day at the water park. The "water park" description doesn't do it justice though, because I consider Water Country USA to be THE water park. Joe and I couldn't believe it had been five years since we last visited (even more crazy...we have been together more than 5 years!). But, as it turns out, Water Country will always be a step back in time because nothing had changed. Sure, now there is a fancy turn style that scans in your tickets and recognizes your finger prints, but the very first slides in view have totally been there for all 25 years this place has been open. Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, I weigh more now and don't get turned around backwards in my tube while going down those particular slides but, the experience is still just as joyful as the days I had to make sure I was tall enough to ride.

We started at 10am and didn't quit until dinner time. Joe's favorite ride is one of the newer attractions (new meaning less than 10 years old) and is really just a jazzed up lazy river. It's 3 feet deep zooming water that carries you along in your life jacket. You can float there all day long. The Hubba Hubba Highway:


I'm still partial to a more traditional slide that is fun because it's mostly in the dark so you cant see the twists and drops ahead. Malibu Pipeline:

Always entertaining in a water park is checking out the hot specimen surrounding you (see picture above).

The biggest disappointment of the day was learning that the Lemon Drop was no more. Instead, in it's place, was a incredibly disappointing children's slide. What were they thinking?

BEFORE

AFTER

We had a lot of fun! We spent the night in Williamsburg on Thursday. On Friday, we had breakfast, spent the day at the outlets, and returned home. We were mesmerized by the amount of traffic traveling south on 95 that day. I think we made a wise decision to go early! On Saturday, Joe visited his grandparents and once he returned we met his family for some fun on the boat on the river. Everyone (except me) tried their hand at knee boarding. While we didn't actually go see any fireworks, we had a decent view of multiple shows down at the beach on both Friday and Saturday, right from our window. As usual, Sunday has become the recovery/errands/cleaning day. A 4-day weekend well spent, if you ask me! Hope everyone had a great holiday too!

Pictures from Theme Park Review.