Your Best Sweet Potato Recipe

TasteFood doesn't peel the sweet potatoes for this dish, so neither did we. But we did scrub them.

The spices are bold -- salt, cumin, chile powder, paprika, cayenne and pepper.

It's easiest to toss by hand.

Be sure to arrange these in a single layer, and remember to flip them in the oven. When we tested these, they took a few minutes longer than specified, as we wanted them to get nice and crisp.

We got 1 tablespoon of lime juice from half a lime.

We found sweet chili sauce in the Thai section of the grocery store.

We made the sauce just as the fries went into the oven, so it had a few minutes to sit before we ate it. The flavors melded nicely.

Zaatar, an herb blend with sesame seeds, often including thyme, hyssop, and oregano, is used as both a flavoring, in an oil such as this, or a condiment on hummus or sandwiches.

Lauren calls for the carrot to be diced. Merrill has impressive knife skills, but since the soup will be pureed, precision is not terribly important for any of the vegetables.

Cleaning the leeks. (See Amanda's explanation here)

Be sure to watch the oil carefully -- you don't want to burn the zaatar.

Lauren thoughtfully reminded us to remove the bay leaf before pureeing.

It turns out, Amanda is a daredevil with the immersion blender. It came reaaaally close to us being covered in soup.

Amanda however, was proud of the pretty patterns she could make. Here, she saw flowers.

Our soup may have simmered for a moment too long, so after pureeing, along with seasoning the soup, we added a splash of water to thin it out.