The chicken got all my love. I rinsed it, patted it dry and marinated it in fragrant citrus, herbs and spices. I built a hardwood charcoal fire in the grill and when the temperature was just right, I set this coddled chicken upright on a special cavity stand. It sat there, legs akimbo, like a happy (if headless) baby for two hours. It emerged from the grill, as I had hoped, with burnished skin and succulent flesh.

The veggies were a quick slam. I found a bunch of kale, a leek and — hello — a can of chickpeas that needed using. They seemed like good candidates for a Turkish-style treatment in the Dutch oven that was sitting on the stovetop. I chopped, dumped, stirred, covered the pot and then forget about the veggies until the kids were clamoring for food.

John Kessler writes food features and a column about food and more for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution E-mail John Kessler Recent Kessler columns Your fool-proof checklist for Thanksgiving  Hours of low-temperature cooking yield tender, juicy meat  Different things to sample on my new dining menu         More John Kessler Related: John Kessler's blog: Food & More John Kessler's recipes Meridith Ford Goldman's Table Talk Jeanne Besser's Feeding Frenzy Evening Edge Atlanta Restaurant reviews and search Recipes from Atlanta restaurants Favorite Atlanta recipes

Once at the table, I got the verdict on the meal. “The chicken’s good, Dad,” they all said, pushing it to the sides of their plates. They were too busy swiping up the vegetables with wedges of pita. The five-minute side dish trumped the labor-intensive main course. Sometimes I think I could cook one of the kids’ Crocs Turkish style, and it would best everything on the table.

I learned this technique for cooking vegetables from Turkish friends, from cooks I’ve interviewed for stories and even from Paula Wolfert, who has written the best books about Mediterranean cooking in the English language. Here’s how she describes it in “The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen” (Wiley, $34.95):

“I call this method of slow cooking vegetables, which enhances their flavor by forcing them to reabsorb their own moisture, Mediterranean alchemy. It relies on self-basting, usually in a sturdy pot in which the vegetables are cooked in their own juices. To keep the cooking temperature low and constant and to encourage recycling, the pot must be heavy- bottomed and tightly covered.”

The result, says Wolfert, is that the “vegetables turn creamy within while remaining firm enough to hold their shape.”

In Turkey, vegetables cooked this way often fall under the rubric of “zeytinyagli,” meaning an olive oil braise. In other words, you start with a serious, gurgling glug rather than a teaspoon of oil.

Syndicated nutrition columnist Ed Blonz says this isn’t a bad thing from a health perspective.

“The olive oil basically becomes the delivery system for all the fat-soluble nutrients,” Blonz said by telephone.

The oil (about a quarter cup for a family meal) also delivers flavor big time. Any onions, garlic, bell pepper or tomato you might add to the mix will soften and turn intensely fragrant in this oil. Thanks to the oil, the flavors continue to develop: What tastes good hot will become even better at room temperature and then brilliant after a night in the fridge.

While I’ve learned to make several dishes a Turk might recognize, I now throw around the qualifier “Turkish” the way other cooks say “Hawaiian” every time they open a can of crushed pineapple. You should try my Turkish collard greens. I promise there are no Hawaiian ones.

Here is the kale recipe I cooked that evening for the family — one that I know will go into rotation. As with most braised vegetables, I like to serve good, thick yogurt and pita that’s a little hot and crisp from the oven. The chicken, alas, is optional.