Foodie Friday: Sweet potato “smash fries”

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I have been hearing a lot lately about Smashburger, a new burger joint that will be coming to town soon. In the meantime, there is another location in a nearby town. I finally stopped there to see what the buzz was about. Our group had hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken sandwiches, and no one was disappointed.

What I was especially looking forward to trying, however, was the sweet potato “smash fries.” From what I understand, they are seasoned with olive oil, salt & rosemary, and they will Rock. Your. World. Wow – I ate the entire order and would have eaten more, even though the order had more than enough.

I decided to try to recreate the side dish at home. My first variation was too salty, but the second go-round was scrumptious. It will definitely tide me over until the new location opens! I highly recommend giving it a try. Just slice the sweet potatoes into fry-size slivers and pan-fry in olive oil with kosher salt (I like the coarseness) and rosemary, to taste.

My mouth is watering, just thinking about it. And, for the record, I didn’t receive any perks for blogging about Smashburger … though I wouldn’t turn down a heaping plate of those heavenly taters! šŸ˜‰

Becoming rooted (Prayer Devotional for the week of October 28, 2012)

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Although Iā€™m certainly no Master Gardener, I have gotten better in recent years about keeping plants alive. (I once killed a cactus, so any improvement is noteworthy!) I have an ivy that has survived for several years, and Iā€™ve even pinched off some of its vines and re-rooted & potted them a few times. The ivy now has a few long, winding vines that I wrap around the pot in a leafy spiral.

Well, I learned something new this week. I noticed that a colleague had a potted ivy on her desk that was full and fluffy, not long and spiraled like mine. I asked her why hers looked so lush, and she said that the trick is to prune it and force the vine to grow upward, rather than outward. To think ā€“ all this time, Iā€™ve been so proud of myself for simply keeping a plant alive and healthy, when it could have been even lusher and fuller!

Arenā€™t our spiritual lives like that, sometimes? We get stuck in a rut and keep on with the same olā€™, same olā€™ because it seems to be working ok, but we donā€™t make the effort to prune areas that need to grow. Maybe we donā€™t have outwardly obvious places that need to be plucked and clipped, like yellow leaves and dead spots, but if we were willing to let the ultimate Master Gardener prune us where he sees fit, then we could become even more impactful for the kingdom.

Romans 11:16-20 takes this idea to a whole new level. Our lives arenā€™t just pruned and repotted; if the kingdom of God could be described as a tree, then weā€™ve been completed grafted into it! Our life force is now ā€œā€¦ a holy, God-planted, God-tended root. If the primary root of the tree is holy, thereā€™s bound to be some holy fruit. Some of the treeā€™s branches were pruned and you wild olive shoots were grafted inā€ (v. 16-17, MSG).

If we are grafted into the Master Gardenerā€™s tree, then we have nothing to fear from a little pruning by his loving hands. He wants our roots to dig deeply into his Word so that we can grow to our fullest capacity! Trust him with the changes he wants to make in your life.