My Favorite Recipes: Meet Guy Spencer, Palouse

Bev Spencer and son Guy, both of Palouse, operate the Runner Bean Ranch together. They have turned their desire for fresh, healthy produce into a business that provides for local residents who need access to local, wholesome foods.

Guy Spencer must be the last person in Whitman County to still say winter is his favorite season. We will get back to that. Guy and his Mother, Bev, operate Runner Bean Ranch located on the edge of Palouse. Neither Guy nor Bev are from Palouse, but his father and grandfather are.

Guy and his brother grew up in Montana where his dad was a developer and his mom worked for a title company. The boys spent part of their summers with their grandparents. Guy said the farm was like “a conservatory, flowerbeds, ornamental shrubs and trees, a fruit orchard, every kind of cane berry you could imagine, and a garden about as big as Detroit. They didn’t have any animals by that time, just a couple of dogs and a cat. In its day the farm had chickens, sheep and a couple of milk cows.”

The farm was leased out for a number of years, but now Guy and his mother are making an effort to get it back to how it was in his grandparents' day. This is a surprising turn for Guy, who as a child in Montana saw his mom’s gardens as devices of torture requiring sifting rocks out of the soil and pulling weeds when he and his brother preferred to be playing in the woods or riding their skateboards.

Bev came to Palouse about 15 years ago, and Guy followed about five years later.

“I was going to art school and had misgivings about it, and my mom sounded like she could use some help.

I figured I would stay a year or two to get things squared away then go back to the university and finish up.

Ten years later, I’m still not caught up with the place.

Farming has gotten into our blood.

It probably started innocent enough with a small garden in back.

Then we realized how much food we could really grow and started doing the Farmers Market in Moscow.

That was a lot of fun, and it was a key part in getting us where we are today.

Somewhere along the line we became aware of just how much need there is for fresh produce in this area.

Not just a desire for fresh healthy produce, but an actual need for it.

Virtually all our produce is distributed through the Whitman County food pantries through the Farm to Food Pantry Program, a Washington State Department of Agriculture program that helps pantries purchase local produce.

It allows the farm to take care of our financial needs and we feel like our produce is going to the people that need it the most.”

So, what is it about winter? For Guy, winter is “my favorite season, I like the total transformation of the landscape. It resets everything. Maybe I like winter because I like to see the world wake up from it. My other favorite part about winter is food. Slow cooked food that warms your bones.”

And so Guy offers a hot winter meal of foods he can pull from his freezer.

Recipes

Lamb shanks

The only thing standing between you and good lamb shanks is salt, pepper and your oven.

Heat it up to about 200 degrees.

In a dutch oven or heavy skillet with a lid, heat up some butter on medium heat.

When the butter is hot, throw your lamb shanks that have been rolled in flour into the pan and let them brown on all sides as best you can, this isn’t TV. You could even throw some diced onions and garlic in there as the lamb is browning.

Just as you are thinking “this is going to burn” add some stock of any nature, we use lamb stock.

I have also been known to use wine and I have even used plain old water.

Add the liquid until it half covers the shanks, put the lid on and slide it into the oven.

Do something else for about three hours.

The meat should be coming off the bones.

Reserve the liquid and make lentils with it or add potatoes and frozen vegetables and make it into a stew, or blend it with dried ancho chilies add hominy and you have posole.

Corn side dish

Got a bunch of cut corn in the freezer? Who doesn’t? Here is a way to burn through a bunch of that. It starts with a half-pound of bacon and really it only gets better from there. Dice the bacon and put it in a medium hot pan and get it rendered and crispy. Add minced garlic - a whole head if you can spare it, a TBSP of ground cumin, as much cayenne as you think you can handle and some salt. Add a large diced onion and get them almost brown then add the cut corn, ours is in two cup bags. Let the corn cook down and caramelize. Work the pan to keep it from sticking. Finally, add a can of drained black beans, let them get hot then serve with a little lime juice over the top.

Cherry nut bread

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9x5-inch (8-cup) loaf pan.

Whisk together thoroughly:

1½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp all spice

Whisk together in a large bowl:

1 large egg

½ cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1 TBSP fresh lemon juice

1 ½ cups fresh tart cherries, pitted or frozen, pitted tart cherries thawed and mostly drained.

Add the flour mixture and fold until about three quarters of the dry ingredients are moistened.

Add: 1 cup coarsely chopped toasted walnuts.

Fold just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Candied walnuts

This recipe calls for two kinds of salt and a lot of it, you can dial it back a bit if you like.

Make simple syrup of 1/8 cup sugar and 1/8 cup water in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar dissolves, and then take it off the heat and allow it to cool. (To be honest, I don’t allow mine to cool much.)

4 cup raw walnuts

3 TBSP turbinado sugar

1 TBSP kosher salt

1 ¼ tsp fine sea salt

2 ¼ tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp cayenne pepper

¾ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 ½ tsp light corn syrup

1 TBSP grapeseed oil, or another oil with a similarly high smoke point

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Spread the walnuts on a rimmed baking sheet, and bake until lightly toasted and fragrant, about 10 minutes. Immediately transfer to a plate, and set aside to cool.

While the nuts cool, combine the sugar, salts, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, ginger, black pepper and nutmeg in a small bowl. Stir to mix.

Reduce the oven temperature to 275 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the walnuts in a large bowl. Add the simple syrup, corn syrup and grapeseed oil, and stir to coat the nuts. Add the spice mix, and toss gently until the nuts are evenly coated. Spread on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until the spice mixture is caramelized and the nuts are toasted, about 25-40 minutes. To check for doneness, take a few nuts out of the oven and let cool for a few minutes; if done, they should be dry to the touch.

Cool completely; then store in an airtight container. (The original recipe says that the nuts should keep at room temperature for a week, but I’d guess that they’ll keep longer than that. Two weeks, easy.) Or eat continuously for 10 minutes and start another batch.