Twenty Bag | Sep 1

In this week’s Twenty Bag—Sweet corn from Barbee Farms (NC), Watsonia Farms organic grown cherry tomatoes, gourmet potato mix, Japanese eggplant, banana/Anaheim pepper mix (mild sweet heat), okra, Crescent Farms organic grown carrots, Lively Orchards Honeycrisp apples—happy Labor Day from Rooting Down Farm!

Summer may be technically drawing to a close as we head into the Labor Day weekend, but here in the Lowcountry, our long warm season will keep the bounty flowing from our farms for a few more months.

So…to the grill! Half the stuff in this week’s Twenty Bag will toast up nicely on the backyard grill—and who doesn’t love the deep, smoky flavor a little charring imparts? I found a super easy how-to for grilling okra from The Spruce Eats that also offers a bunch of variations for spicing up the pod. If you’re not grilling (or it rains!), New York Times columnist Martha Rose Shulman has you covered with her oven-roasted recipe.

You’ve got to love the thought of Food Network star Bobby Flay grilling all manner of dishes on his roof-top grill in the middle of Manhattan (Grill It! With Bobby Flay). In my opinion, you can’t have too many applications for the plucky potato (being Polish, I have many) so I’m adding his grilled potato salad recipe to my archive.

On to the corn! The test kitchen at Epicurious tried a few different methods before giving the thumbs up to this recipe for grilling corn on the cob. Here’s what they say:

“The absolute best way to grill corn? Pull back the husk—without removing it entirely—and remove the silk from the corn. Then pull the husk back into place. This allows coverage from the grill, both protecting the corn from direct exposure to the flames and partially steaming the ear, while still allowing the smoke from the grill to penetrate the husk. It's the Goldilocks of grilled corn methods.”

The peppers and tender Japanese eggplant are also great on the grill with a toss of olive oil, salt and pepper—pretty much the same method outlined for grilling okra.

If you sampled the North Carolina Honeycrisps in last week’s bag, you know they need nothing more than maybe an hour in the fridge before munching—they’re a crunchy mouthful of juicy, sweet heaven!

Any questions? Simply search sweetgrass + grits for more recipes I’ve curated especially for the Rooting Down Farm’s Twenty Bag.