Market dinner.

Last night's eggs-in-a-nest was so good I find myself making it again tonight. I could eat this at least a couple of times a week, if not every day. I grab three eggs (thinking ahead for lunch tomorrow), one brown egg with a deep orange yolk, and two pale cream eggs with lighter yellow yolks. Again zucchini, onion, carrots, each finely diced into neat (well, maybe not particularly neat) cubes and triangles. Hmm. Maybe it could use more vegetables, if I am planning to stretch this dish to two meals. Rummaging around in the produce drawer I find the bundle of rainbow chard. I have other plans for the leaves, but I twist the stems off. Chopped fine they are like rainbow confetti, fuschia and gold and pale green, adding a burst of color to an already colorfully laden cutting board, deep jade (zucchini) and bright orange (carrots).

I need something else, though. Another vegetable. Sugar snap peas, perhaps. I snap the ends off while watching tv; the brown rice has already begun steaming - it was the first thing I did when I walked in the door, backpack still slung over my shoulders, shoes still on my feet - and I can smell the slightly nutty warmth in the air. If I cook the peas first, I won't need to wash the pan for the eggs (yes, I really am that lazy), so I do that, heating oil, tossing the sugar snap peas, adding a little water so they can steam under the glass cover. Soon they are done, as is the rice, which signals its readiness by giving a little beep. Time for the eggs.

The onions go in first, then the carrots, then the chard. Only when the onions are translucent is it time for the zucchini to go in, everything tossed together and seasoned with salt and a few grinds of pepper. I break the eggs into a bowl and pour them carefully over the vegetables. There is a sizzle, and then a slightly slumping noise as the eggs settle in around the vegetables. I scrape the vegetables into the middle of the pan, pulling them over the cooking eggs so it all forms a more or less single, multicolored mass. I have deviated from both of the original recipes that inspired this - Colwin's eggs are more poached than fried, and Kingsolver's recipe calls for chard and dried tomatoes, which I don't like - and it is less eggs-in-a-nest and more a lazy-cook's-frittata.

Arranged over brown rice, with a heaping pile of sugar snap peas - lately my favorite sides to every meal, it seems - it is the most beautiful frittata I have ever seen, pink and green and yellow and orange, held together by the lacy white and deep gold of the fried eggs. And there are leftovers for the next day's lunch. What could be more perfect?