Notes From Swan's Nest
Back In The Kitchen
I’m back in the kitchen this week after a break to take care of my mother in Illinois following her hip surgery. My sister, Lynn joined me for the week and we worked as a team to care for our parents – one who had had surgery, and the other who was exhausted from his “night nurse” duties.
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Our two younger sisters Nancy and Judy were in Illinois the week prior, and brilliantly handled Mom’s immediate post-operative days. By the time Lynn and I arrived, our mom was starting to move into the next level of care – frequent, but not constant. As she grew stronger and started to take an interest in other things, my sister and I began to spend more time in the kitchen. For three and a half days, we cooked like wild women, not only preparing nutritious daily meals, but also filling Mom’s freezers with meals for weeks to come.
So here I am, once again in my own kitchen, or should I say kitchens. Swan’s Nest has two kitchens – the smaller “old” kitchen that was once the home office of 1800’s gold baron Ben Revett, and the “new” kitchen we added on while restoring the house these past three years.
For months, my husband Randy and I have been working to complete the new kitchen in time for a mid-March photo shoot, and we’re almost finished. Today, I’m wiping down the cabinet exteriors and interiors – not a very glamorous job, but a necessary one if I’m going to move all my cookware and “pretties” into the cupboards in time for the photo shoot. But it could be worse. Randy has the job of washing the wall of windows on the South side of the kitchen. Better Randy than I! After doing windows much of the morning, he took off for an afternoon of downhill skiing in fresh powder at Keystone.
One would think after whipping up 32 meals with my sister in just under four days, I would turn to frozen dinners now that I’m home, but I love cooking no matter what the circumstances. Last night, I created the most divine Colorado lamb chop recipe with a blackberry glaze, and it was so easy, I want to share it with you. You’re going to love it!
-Christy
| Colorado Lamb Chops with Blackberry Glaze: | |
|---|---|
| 2 to 4 | lamb shoulder arm chops |
| Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper mélange | |
| 1 | tablespoon olive oil |
| 3 | large cloves garlic, peeled and minced |
| 1/2 | cup dry red wine |
| 1/2 | cup beef broth |
| 1 | tablespoon seedless blackberry preserves |
| 1 | sprig fresh rosemary |
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Season the lamb chops with coarse salt and pepper. Preheat a large skillet over medium heat, add the oil, and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the meat to the pan and cook 4 to 5 minutes until the meat is brown. Turn the meat over and cook 4 to 5 minutes to brown the remaining side. Turn the meat over again and cook until it is pink inside, about 4 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chops.
Transfer the meat to a platter and cover to keep it warm. Add the garlic to the pan and sauté 1 minute. Deglaze the pan with wine and beef broth, stirring to loosen brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the blackberry preserves and stir until the preserves have melted. Cook the sauce several minutes until it has thickened and reduced by half. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.
To serve, spoon the sauce around the lamb chops and garnish them with fresh rosemary.
Yield: 2 to 4 servings
Lenten Meals
My husband Randy and I had the best Ash Wednesday dinner last night – Pasta Primavera with Shrimp. I was in the house all day with the wood floor installers and didn’t have a chance to get to the supermarket, so an hour before dinner, I opened the fridge and cupboards to see what my options were. Lots of fresh veggies in the crisper, a block of Romano cheese in the drawer below, a package of thin spaghetti and a can of vegetable broth in the vault, and a partial bag of shrimp in the freezer – everything I needed to put together a tasty, meatless dinner in less than an hour.
Now before I go any farther, you may be asking why I keep spaghetti and vegetable broth in a vault! The answer goes back 112 years to when Swan’s Nest was constructed. The owner and designer of the house, Ben Revett was a gold baron, and he built our home as a gift for his bride. The smaller kitchen we’re currently using was originally Ben Revett’s office, and he had a gold vault built adjacent to his office to store his fortune. With rock walls 2-feet thick and steel rails in the ceiling, it was a secure place to store the gold he dredged from nearby rivers and streams.
Since I’m a little short on gold, we converted the vault into a butler’s pantry with storage for wine and glassware, plus a temporary mini-pantry. Once the large kitchen addition is complete in a few weeks, I’ll move food items into my new spacious pantry, and the gold vault will become a wine vault.
So, let’s get back to last night’s dinner because I know you’re looking for something tasty, quick, inexpensive, and ideal for Lenten Friday’s. While the water is heating for the pasta, chop 2 stalks of celery, a small onion, a green bell pepper, broccoli, and a small bunch of asparagus, place the veggies on a large platter and set it aside. Place the frozen raw shrimp into a medium bowl, fill with cold water, and set it aside to thaw, about 15 minutes.
Preheat a large skillet over medium heat for the vegetables, and peel the shrimp, placing them on a paper towel to dry. When the water comes to a boil, add coarse salt and the spaghetti, and cook until the pasta is al dente, about 8 minutes. Pour 1 cup of the pasta cooking water into a Pyrex measuring cup and set it aside, then drain the spaghetti in a colander, reserving a few tablespoons of pasta water in the bottom of the pot. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and a dash of coarse salt to the pot, swirl to mix, and return the drained pasta to the pot, tossing well.
While the pasta is cooking, pour 1 tablespoon olive oil into the skillet and add onion, celery and broccoli, stirring frequently until they are almost crisp-tender. Stir in the bell pepper, asparagus, and 2 cloves of minced garlic, and cook several minutes until they are almost crisp-tender. Deglaze the pan with 1/3 cup vegetable broth and 1/3 cup of the reserved pasta water, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook 2 minutes until the liquid in reduced by half. Season the veggies with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Preheat a small skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and the shrimp, and cook until the bottoms turned pink, about 1 minute. Turn them over and cook 1-2 minutes more. Sprinkle the shrimp with Cajun seasoning and deglaze the pan with 3 tablespoons vegetable broth, stirring well to scrape cooking bits from the bottom of the pan. To serve, transfer the pasta to serving bowls, top with sautéed vegetables and the shrimp, along with juices from the pans. Garnish with freshly grated Romano cheese and enjoy a fabulous Friday meal. Scrumptious!
Cook’s Note: The shrimp may be sautéed with the vegetables, but for allergy reasons, I cook them separately.
-Christy
Valentine Greetings
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Red Valentine hearts have been hanging in the bay window of my Swan’s Nest kitchen since the 1st of February. It’s a tradition I carried with me to Colorado from our Dallas home – one established when our sons were little. I’m sure my neighbors still think I do it for the neighborhood kids, but truth-be-told, I hang those Valentine hearts in the window each year for ME.
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You see, I have an almost-Valentine birthday, and when I was little, my mother would host a party at home for me each year. The table was draped with a white linen cloth and there were red Valentine hearts everywhere – in the windows next to the front door, on the party invitations, pasted to the ruffled, white crepe paper candy cups filled with red cinnamon hearts at each guest’s place, and incorporated into the centerpiece.
As Valentine’s Day approaches each year, I’m transported back to memories of those annual celebrations, and I can hardly wait to hang the hearts in my windows. No doubt, the thrill of those childhood parties contributed to why birthdays and special meals have always been huge in our family – so important that I have devoted my career to food and celebration. There’s nothing like walking into the kitchen a million times a day and smiling at the sight of those red hearts in the window. Such a simple thing, and yet they generate so much joy.
I’m smiling these days for another reason. Our new kitchen addition is almost complete. Last week, we filmed the installation of the new quartz countertops and several of the large appliances for a future episode of At Home with Christy Rost. Later in the week, our tile experts Sean and Ryan installed the travertine backsplash, and our plumber Robert hooked up the sinks, disposals, and exterior venting system to the cooktop’s downdraft. Next week, our good friend, Phil with Colorado Custom Wood Floors will begin installing the select-grade hickory wood floor over our in-floor heating system. I’m certain the kitchen will be transformed before my eyes as the floor goes down.
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As snowflakes drift past my window, I’m headed to the kitchen to bake a batch of Valentine cookies to share with friends. This year, I’m baking them in Swan’s Nest’s “old kitchen”, but it won’t be long before I start cooking up a storm in the new one. May your Valentine’s Day be filled with hearts….
-Christy
A New Year - A New Kitchen
My husband, Randy and I left Swan’s Nest right after the holidays and flew to our home in Dallas to help move his mother and her husband into a retirement community. It was an intense, mini-version of “Extreme Home Makeover” as both families pitched in to pack, move, unpack, and create an elegant, comfortable home for Mom and Jim in their new apartment.
Now that we’ve returned to our beloved Swan’s Nest, Randy and I are involved in another sort of makeover – the completion of the “new” kitchen addition we built onto Swan’s Nest. Not many homes have two kitchens, and I’ll admit it does raise some eyebrows, but the beautifully-remodeled “old” kitchen was originally Ben Revett’s office in 1898, and its storage capacity is very limited – especially for a woman who makes her living from cooking. There’s no room for a breakfast room table – not even a tiny one – and the windows behind the island create a lighting issue each time we film there.
So, it was decided early in the restoration process that Swan’s Nest would have a large, new kitchen addition that would provide me room enough to cook, entertain, develop recipes, write cookbooks, and film television shows. This is my “dream kitchen” – the first in my life. I’ve always made do with whatever kitchen I inherited, so the thrill of having a kitchen of my own design is almost intoxicating.
We’re on a tight timeframe to complete the kitchen. There’s a magazine photo shoot scheduled for mid-March and there’s still much to be done before the photographer arrives. The framing, roof, windows, sheetrock, electrical, texturing, painting, and cabinetry installation are all complete. In the four days since we returned to Swan’s Nest, the major appliances were delivered, we picked up the terrazzo tile for the backsplash, we decided on how the terrazzo would be laid out, the select-grade hickory was delivered for the flooring, and Mike from Trimworks, one of our carpenters, adjusted the island to ensure it is level for the countertops.
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Next week, our Colorado Springs countertop fabricators will produce our countertops using Zodiaq® “Space Black” by DuPont. I chose quartz because it’s durable, non-porous, it won’t stain, and it’s easy to care for. Monday February 1st is a big day. The countertops will be delivered and installed, the KitchenAid appliances will be installed, and my production company will film the entire process for an upcoming episode of At Home with Christy Rost, a production for American Public Television.
By way of disclosure, I should mention that DuPont has contributed the Zodiaq® quartz material for our countertops, KitchenAid has contributed all of the major appliances, and Waypoint™ Living Spaces by American Woodmark has contributed the cabinetry for my television shows.
The New Year has taken off at a very quick pace, but it comes with a brand new kitchen, and our final major project in Swan’s Nest’s 3-year restoration process. I look forward to sharing the excitement with you.
Christy
The Christmas Tree Surprise
The Christmas rush is over and my family and I have settled down to enjoying a post-Christmas glow. It's a gloriously clear, cold mountain morning -- a day filled with infinite possiblilities. Randy and our older son, Timothy are planning a cross country ski excursion, while I run a few errands and enjoy some quiet "home time" near our tall, fragrant Christmas tree.
It's a funny tree. It's been such a busy year with the launch of our Thanksgiving television special, Randy announced a couple of weeks before Christmas that he thought a smaller tree would be a good idea this year -- 7 or 8 feet tall instead of last year's 13-foot tree. That was fine with me, as I pictured in my mind the "perfect" seven foot Christmas tree, decorated with lights and glistening ornaments. The afternoon we hiked into Swan's Nest's forest, we got a later start than we had intended, and the sun was already dropping near the mountain peaks. It was cold and there was a fresh layer of fluffy snow on the trees, and as Randy and I started up the hill, I was mindful that we needed to find a tree without wasting too much time, cut it down, and head back to the warmth of the house before darkness fell.
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We went from tree to tree, taking note of a few, rejecting others, but always wondering what was a few feet higher up the mountain. At last, we found it -- a tree with a straight trunk and full branches, perched on a fairly steep slope. It looked to be about 8 feet tall, which was close enough to our targeted height. A few photos later, I knelt in the snow with Randy's tree saw and set to work. Before long, the tree was cut and we were headed back down the hill toward home. It wasn't until we reached the front porch that we realized this tree was a bit longer than it looked on the side of the hill. In fact, once we inserted the trunk into the tree stand, we realized it was actually about 12 feet tall. Oops! So much for good intentions. And what was with the lower half of the tree that looked so full against our boots? With the hillside's sharp angle, Randy and I had been level with the tree's top five feet, which was indeed very full, but the lower half could only be described as sparse. We couldn't help but laugh at the "Charlie Brown" tree before us -- tall, straight, thick at the top, sparse at the bottom -- and whatever happened to the branches in the back? Okay, so it isn't a tree that will ever grace the cover of a magazine, but hey.....laughter during the Christmas season is a good thing. Some lights and ornaments, and it will be beautiful.
I never did find all the ornaments this year. I remember packing them carefully, wrapping each fragile glass swan in tissue paper before placing them in the boxes. Countless trips to the upstairs storage room and up to the barn proved futile. No doubt, I'll discover the box of swan ornaments months from now when searching for something else. Somehow, their temporary loss seems appropriate for our surprise of a tree this year. With fewer ornaments, its quirks remain easily visible, but the best part of this year's tree has been the joy we've found while gathering around it. Our time together as a family has been rich and full, like the top five feet of our tree. We'll laugh about this tree for years to come, but the sweet memories will last a lifetime.