Kim's Horizon

I love holiday weekends. My kids are still small, so I don’t succumb to the pressure of hurrying them off to every egg hunt and Easter Bunny photo in LA County. Today we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast of donut holes (*gasp*), fresh fruit, and chocolate milk. My husband and I sat on the living room floor, playing Hot Wheels, puzzles, and dolls until the little ones were rubbing their eyes and exhibiting those early signs of “I-need-a-nap” crankiness. The hubby was tired, too, and he also retreated for a nap.

So here I am with two hours to kill by myself. What do I do??? The thoughts raced through my head – I should catch up on Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19. I could watch the last 2 episodes of Season 2 of Your Honor. (Seriously, these shows are SO good and totally bingeworthy.) I could take a nap myself. I could paint my nails in the beautiful Easter colored 17-free nail polish from Ella + Mila I bought and never used last year.

You know what I did? I curled my hair. We have no intention of going anywhere today. I’m still in my cozy pjs and plan to stay in them all day long because it’s cold and rainy… and because I want to! But a couple weeks ago, Facebook started showing me ads for the Beachwaver B1.25 and after seeing those ads for days, I finally ordered one (we can talk about my Facebook retail therapy another day). This morning, it finally arrived! The Beachwaver is pretty awesome – it rotates the barrel for you in either direction with a simple touch of a button. Yep, I’m that lazy. But you know what? It was worth every penny. Look at these beautiful, bouncy curls in my overly-processed, bleached and recolored hair! With no makeup and fuzzy slippers, I feel pretty. That $64 pricetag was worth every penny.

Well that took 10 minutes. What now? “Relax the way you want,” I told myself as I considered options.

Inspiration from memory lane

I have been reminiscing about this marinated black bean chicken sandwich for about 8 years now. When I worked in downtown LA, I used to take a long lunch every six months and go to this beautiful little salon on 6th Street, across from Cole’s French Dip, to get my hair cut and colored. I always got a French dip sandwich to eat while my color processed, but one day my stylist suggested that I try the cute little bakery up the street. Her favorite was the only sandwich on the menu. The bakery would marinate a thin chicken breast in white wine and spices, then grill it on a little indoor electric grill. They spread a layer of black bean dip on it, covered it in arugula, poured over a lemony oil, and served on a thin roll that was pillowy soft inside with a crusty, crunchy outside. That sandwich was pure heaven. Sadly, both the salon and bakery are long gone. Today, I decided I wanted to recreate that sandwich.

Kitchens can be relaxing, too!

I pulled out some chicken thighs to bring to room temperature, because that’s what I had on hand. I also had frozen lemon juice cubes in the freezer so I thawed four of them while I washed and chopped cilantro and garlic. Then I poured 1/4C of EVOO and 1/4C of dry white wine into a 7×13 inch baking dish. I added the cilantro and garlic along with salt, pepper, and the thawed lemon juice. After a quick swirl, I added the thighs, let them sit for 10 minutes, flipped them, placed a lid on the dish, and popped them back in the fridge. This wasn’t a recipe – it was me just trying to remember the flavors and recreate them. It smells good – hopefully it will taste good.

Next I looked up a copycat recipe for Trader Joe’s discontinued black bean dip and whipped that up in my blender, minus the chipotle because I don’t love hot spice. I thawed more lemon juice to add to my favorite 5-ingredient salad dressing. Finally I transformed my leftover corn on the cob from earlier in the week into a mini corn pudding side dish, which will go in the oven while I grill the chicken on our rain-soaked deck.

Will my family eat this tonight for dinner? I have no idea. My backup plan is grilled cheese sandwiches and canned tomato soup for them if they reject my sandwich.

Easter Prep

Then I decided to start the prep for tomorrow’s Easter brunch. It’s just the four of us, so I planned a simple, stress-free meal that wouldn’t require me to get up at the crack of dawn:

• Honeybaked ham
• Candied sweet potatoes
• Steamed green beans with pancetta
• Egg bites with cheese and roasted red peppers
• Deviled eggs
• Cinnamon rolls
• Sweet kale salad (from Costco)

Is it the healthiest meal? No. But it’s the meal that will allow me to relax the way I want with my family tomorrow. My sweet potatoes are peeled and chopped, my beans are washed and snapped, my eggs are beaten, red peppers diced, eggs hard boiled in the Instant Pot and now resting in ice water (for the kids to color tonight before we eat them tomorrow!), ham in the crock pot in the fridge to be heated very slowly overnight.

Relaxation recap

I spent 10 minutes curling my hair, 2 minutes admiring it, an hour in the kitchen, and about half an hour sharing my ramblings with you here. In the next 30 minutes before the kids wake up, and I think I’m going to have a glass of wine while I finish the last half of the Your Honor episode I fell asleep to last night. Should do a load of laundry? Probably, but that would go against today’s “Relax the way you want” principle, wouldn’t it?

However and whenever you choose… I hope you relax the way you want.

Happy Easter!