Weekend Herb Blogging #158 - I'm Hosting!

This week, I'm the lucky host of Weekend Herb Blogging, originally created by Kalyn over at Kalyn's Kitchen. This event is now hosted by Haalo over at Cook (almost) Anything. Weekend Herb Blogging is supposed to encourage food bloggers to experiment with different herbs and other plant ingredients, to come up with new and creative ways of using them. Alternatively, you could write an informative post about a particular herb or plant ingredient. For those of you who are new to WHB, the full rules can be found here. Here's a quick summary, though. To participate, just do the following once you've blogged about your fun herb, spice, plant, vegetable or flower recipe:

Send an email with WHB#158 in the subject line and the following details:

Your Name
Your Blog Name/URL

Your Post URL
Your Location

Attach a photo: 250px x 250px

Emails must be received by:

3pm Sunday - Utah Time
9pm Sunday - London Time
8am Monday - Melbourne (Aus) Time

For my first recipe, I thought I would gussie up the old standard of cheese fries. I packed in more flavor (and nutrients) by switching it up to sweet potatoes, and switched out the cheese whiz for a deep, all-grown-up gruyere and muenster cheese sauce. The french fries were tossed in a little olive oil and a fresh sage and rosemary herb salt, and then baked until crispy. Combining the sweet potatoes with the freshy, earthy herbs made a delicious combination, and seemed like the perfect submission for WHB. I served these along side a spicy breaded and baked chicken breast that featured the hot flavor of smoked paprika. I'll tell you more about that later this week. But for now, onto the cheese fries...

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes, cleaned and cut into uniform thick cut french fries (i.e. steak fries)
1 tbsp olive oil
3 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
8 fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
2-3 tsp coarse sea salt

Directions

preheat oven to 375
toss sweet potatoes in olive oil
combine salt and herbs in a separate bowl
toss salt mixture over fries and combine thoroughly
spread evenly on a cookie sheet
bake on 375 until crispy, 25-30 minutes (depending on thickness of cut)

Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

1/3 c dry white wine
1/2 c shredded gruyere cheese
1/4 c shredded muenster cheese
2 tsp flour
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp ground mustard
1 garlic glove, minced

Directions

combine all ingredients in a shallow pot, and heat over medium-low heat
stir frequently until well combined, and at a thin "dipping" texture
serve either on the side, or drizzle over sweet potato fries