It was Fish'n'Chip Friday and I had Rainbow Chard to harvest

A photo had popped up on Jamie Oliver's Facebook account of delicious looking Italian style greens (Ricetta tipica per verdure verdi), just as the "Silverbeet/Rainbow Chard" mix in my vegie patch was starting to mature.

I decided to give the olive oil & acid treatment to it for my usual "bring vegies" duties for Friday night dinner at my sis and bro-in-lo's:

They are fantastically good-looking vegies!

I split the stems from the leaves as they would take more time to cook.

Aren't the colours appealing?

Then tossed in a wok (stems first, then leaves) with olive oil and lemon plus a little splash of balsamic for some sweetness (but no garlic as sis don't like it). Heavenly!


(I did make a second version for my parents the other day when they came over to help me demolish a ginormous frittata I'd baked to use up the dozen eggs rattling around the back of the fridge that I'd forgotten about. Instead of chopping into such fine pieces I just had half-lengths of stems and far bigger leaf pieces which was somehow tastier. I must report that this dish definitely tastes more nommy with garlic! Yay for two-second dishes!)

Honey soy duck leg

I've had a really lovely day, but it did involve a fair bit of racing around. Racing home in my car, I pulled in at the local grocer's to pick up a specific item and, I thought, some instant dinner (they make roast dinners in a box) as I had absolutely no "actual food" in the house. In the end I went with semi-instant real food; so here is how you make a stupid-easy-quickie dinner that I guarantee will make you even happier than you were before. (I do luv duck, and I certainly luv Luv-A-Duck!)

Here's how you do it:

Screech home, pull out the rice cooker, plug it in, pour about a cupful (or what's left in a bag in the back of the pantry shelf) of rice, fill with water until the waterline above the rice is up to your first knuckle (distal PIP joint for the technicals amongst you) - this is the ancient measuring system I was taught by my Mum. Push the button from 'warm' to 'cook'.

Turn the oven onto 180∘c.

Race out the door to walk the dog around the block. If you don't have a dog, you may omit this step. Don't go out of your way to source a pet just to follow the recipe, that would be daft. You can do something else whilst the oven pre-heats, honest.

Race back in the door, open the duck pack and place the honey soy duck legs onto a baking paper-lined backing tray and plonk it in the oven.

Save the duck pack as it will have rendered then re-solidified fat in it (which will look disturbingly like atheroma, just ignore that. Stop being so technical!). Scrape a spatula-endful out and splat it into a wok on high heat. Chop up the bunch of broccolini you bought - stems chopped, chuck them in the wok first; then the florets; then a tray of mixed mushrooms in order of cooking lenghth. (King oyster, shimeji, oyster, enoki.) The rice will have cooked and the duck will be crisp and perfect.

Layer:

(and don't forget the sprinkle of fresh chives off the windowsill)

Then eat. Watching Jamie Oliver on the telly. He would be proud. Fast food but not too naughty!


P.S. Watching Jimmy and Gwyneth Paltrow play chubby bunny was just too funny!