Saturday Morning Bliss

Our familiar Saturday morning trip to the Durham Farmer's Market yielded a beautiful and colorful harvest of produce... I had $12 and some change in my wallet and look at the locally-grown bounty I was able to get! Silver Queen corn, multicolored bell peppers, tender Swiss chard leaves, long and glossy Asian eggplant, and with my last $2, we bought something called a "jewel melon" which nobody in my family has ever tried.

Later in the evening we had grilled corn and thyme-scented grilled veggies. I am so fortunate to have in-laws who garden and are happy to share their bounty. And our little backyard veggie garden is also starting to yield produce. For the mixed grilled vegetables we had: home-grown thyme, zucchini, and okra, father-in-law's beets, and the eggplant, red pepper from the market. I had half an onion in the fridge leftover from something else, so I threw that in too.

I know you want recipes... Grilled veggies: washed and patted dry everything. Peeled the beets, sliced them lengthwise, and tossed in a little olive oil. In a separate bowl so that everything else wouldn't get pink from the beets, I mixed the sliced onions, zucchini, eggplant and red pepper with some olive oil and several sprigs of thyme. Hubby grilled everything on medium-high heat for about 10-15 mins - more or less, depending how much done-ness you want. We threw in the sliced okra at the last two minutes, almost an afterthought. Finished it with kosher salt and black pepper. Simple, but superb! this was the first time I had tried grilling beets and okra. The beets got a bit crispy but tasted wonderful. The okra was so tender and freshly-picked it really didn't need much cooking. The thyme and onion really lend the veggies a wonderful fragrance. Rosemary and garlic work just as well if you want to try something different.

Grilled corn: pre-boil the corn for no more than 4 to 5 minutes. Butter lightly. throw on the grill for about 2 - 3 minutes, just enough to roast the kernels a bit.

We had it with some grilled ciabatta bread, swiss cheese (for me), turkey burgers (for everyone else). I feel like we had a little bit of heaven for dinner.

- Sharlini