Cooking with Marijuana: While people are perfectly willing to walk into their local dispensary in Orange County and buy edibles on a weekly basis, they may not be as willing to try and make their own edibles. However, cooking with marijuana is no different than cooking with other ingredients, and many people have begun using the plant as an add-in to dishes they are already cooking, which has led to some great recipes for lovers of the plant. Many places where you buy marijuana in Orange County may stock some of the ingredients you need to make some great edibles, such as marijuana-infused butters and oils. You can also make your own, adding things from your kitchen you normally cook with. Not sure where to start? We have some suggestions for you.
Decarboxylation
Before you can do anything with marijuana with regard to cooking, you have to bake the Cannabis to fully activate the THC within the plant, which is called decarboxylation. In order to do this, place the plants on a baking sheet with sides, making sure that the Cannabis is spread out in a single layer. The sides on the baking sheet will prevent any marijuana from falling into your oven, which is important if you don’t want everything you bake to have a marijuana flavor. The oven should be heated to 240 degrees. Bake your marijuana plants for 40 minutes, turning the plants at the 10 and 30 minute mark so that each part of the plant is heated evenly. Understand that your whole house is going to smell like pot when you do this — which is no big deal, but you need to know that up front. When your plants come out of the oven, they will be dry and have a crumbly texture. Your pot is now ready to add to recipes.
Cannabutter
Cannabutter is the basis for making many herb-infused edibles. However, a cautionary note. Don’t think that if you bought bad weed from a guy down the street that it will compare to the stringent standards that cultivators have, where all of the conditions for growing Cannabis are tightly controlled. The dispensaries in Santa Ana and in other areas in Southern California make a superior product, and if you use their product in your cooking, your edibles (including the butter) will be just as good as the marijuana you made it with.
You will need to bring a quart of water to boiling on a stove. Wait until the water is boiling, and then place the butter in the pan, and wait until it completely melts. Most recipes use 4 sticks of butter to every ounce of marijuana. You can vary the amounts based on how much cooking you are going to do and how much butter you need. When the butter is melted, add the marijuana. The marijuana that you have already decarboxylized should be floating about 1 ½ inches from the pan’s bottom.
Once you add the weed to the butter mixture, turn the heat down very low and let the weed cook within the butter, which allows the marijuana to infuse the butter. This whole process takes about three hours. You will know when it is done when the top of the mixture looks thick and glossy. You will need to choose a bowl to put the butter in. Many people choose a heatproof bowl to put their butter in. You will need to put a double layer of cheesecloth over the top of the butter, securing the cloth with tape or string.
When the butter is done, strain the butter over the top of the bowl. Then, pick up the cheesecloth from all four sides and squeeze out the remaining liquid into the bowl. What you have in the cheesecloth is your butter.
Place the butter in the refrigerator to cool for an hour. Many people choose to shape the butter or put it in a butter mold at this time, so if you want to shape or mold the butter, now would be the time to do it.
After the butter sits in the refrigerator for an hour or so, it is ready to eat, or to use in recipes. Cannabutter is the basis for many recipes that are used as edibles, such as baked goods (cookies, brownies, crispies) as well as some chocolates. Once you know how to make cannabutter, there are lots of other recipes you can try as well to stretch your cooking with marijuana talents beyond the usual pot brownies or pot cookies.
