Recently, for about two months, I'd feel like my heart was fluttering or beating way too fast, more often than I was comfortable with. Somehow in my "Working with children & adolescents" class we got on the topic of heart palpitations sometimes being caused by wonky electrolytes, and electrolytes being something involving potassium and sodium, and in that moment I remembered a while ago (3-4 years ago) my nephrologist told me that my potassium levels were very low. I tried upping my potassium intake and bam! Haven't had any fluttering or pounding in a month and a half. Now, I like bananas, but I'm really not their biggest fan, and I certainly can't stuff dark chocolate in my face constantly. After a bit of googling, it came to my attention that sweet potatoes are an excellent source of potassium. Of course I immediately went out, bought two small sweet potatoes, put them in my produce drawer planning to make sweet potato pancakes the next morning, and promptly forgot all about them for two weeks. Guess it doesn't help that I don't want sweet potato pancakes like ever, and my boyfriend doesn't like sweet potato fries. He went away for the weekend, my roommate said something about sweet potatoes, and that night we enjoyed a lovely dinner with veggies, sweet potato fries, and chicken thighs!
- 2 sweet potatoes
- 1.5 tbsp canola oil
- 1-2 tsp of salt
- a few "shakes" or "twists" of pepper
- a pinch of smoked paprika
1. Heat oven to 400f
2. Peel the sweet potatoes (really peel them, don't stop at the yellow, stop when you see the sweet-potato orange) and cut them into half-inch wide fries.
3. Add everything to a bowl and mix, making sure everything is covered and evenly spread
4. Lay the fries down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper
5. Cook for 30 minutes
Serve this with ketchup, mayo, chipotle mayo, or nothing!
