Cannabis Cooking 101: Autumn Harvest, Budget Friendly Tips + a Classic Waldorf Salad Recipe

[00:00:00] Ellen Scanlon: This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

[00:00:12] Ellen Scanlon: Whether you’re a chef, a home cook, or just someone who loves good food, more people are choosing to swap their evening glass of wine or cocktail for a cannabis beverage. I hear from so many women that switching to a weed drink not only enhances their meal, it helps them sleep better at night. Cans delicious cannabis beverages come in yummy flavors like yuzu elderflower and lemon lavender.

[00:00:40] Ellen Scanlon: These are low dose drinks and you can easily customize your experience and feel just the way you want. And now you can try can for yourself. They ship all across the country. Visit drinkcan. com, that’s drink C A N N, and use promo code DOTHEPOT for 20 percent off your order. Try a can today and have a great time without a hangover.

[00:01:15] Jane West: So many, so many women. And then there’s a knock on the door that’s like, like, and we’re like, oh shit, we’re gonna get drunk. Okay, so we open the door. And I’ll tell you the security guard, he definitely did not think that what was going to be behind this door was like 20 women in their like 30s and 40s handing around like two apple pipes.

[00:01:38] Jane West: He just stood there for a minute just like Processing what he was looking at. 

[00:01:46] Ellen Scanlon: Welcome to how to do the pot, a podcast, helping you feel confident about cannabis. I’m your host, Ellen Skinman.

[00:01:59] Ellen Scanlon: You just heard from Colorado based Jane West, a true cannabis pioneer. She founded the lobbying group Women Grow and the accessories brand Jane West. You’ll hear more later in the episode about how an apple played a key role in her work as a cannabis advocate lobbying for the industry in Washington.

[00:02:21] Ellen Scanlon: This is the second episode in our new three part series, Exploring Cooking with Cannabis. It’s all about the art and science of infusing your favorite autumn dishes with a twist. I’ll talk with some amazing chefs who are here to help you elevate your culinary skills and blend the flavors of the fall season with cannabis.

[00:02:45] Ellen Scanlon: We’re celebrating creative ways to incorporate cannabis into fall cooking using one of the season’s most versatile and beloved ingredients, apples. Last week in part one of the series, you learned how to make delicious cannabis infused apple cider, and I shared a lot of tips about cooking with cannabis.

[00:03:07] Ellen Scanlon: Here’s a quick recap. Please relax and have fun. You get to decide how intoxicating to make your food. Consider how you want to feel. And remember that when you eat cannabis, it can take one to two hours to feel the effects. Find a good cookbook that will explain the amount of cannabis to put in your recipe.

[00:03:29] Ellen Scanlon: And it’s probably a good idea to microdose as you’re figuring it out. In today’s episode, we’re serving up some cooking inspiration. You’ll hear expert chefs share their favorite seasonal traditions. And I couldn’t resist asking about those in a pinch homemade apple pipes that maybe you tried back in the day too.

[00:03:51] Ellen Scanlon: Today’s show is all about making it easy for you to incorporate cannabis into your dishes. We’ve got some simple techniques that will help you save money and ensure that your cannabis infused food tastes delicious. Plus, Chef Jen Felmley will walk you through her crunchy, delicious take on the classic Waldorf salad.

[00:04:22] Ellen Scanlon: I have some news. How to Do the Pots newsletter has moved to Substack. If you’re not familiar, Substack is a user friendly online platform designed to support writers. If you’re one of our more than 10, 000 newsletter subscribers, don’t worry, your free access will continue. And now you have an option to support our work by upgrading to a paid subscription.

[00:04:50] Ellen Scanlon: I hope that How to Do the Pot is a valuable resource for you. Whether you listen loyally every week, share our newsletters with your friends and family or follow us on socials. Each of the newsletters highlights a featured podcast episode and I’m excited to introduce a new section called Women We Love.

[00:05:10] Ellen Scanlon: It’s a celebration of inspiring women who also like weed. If you’re curious about what’s happening behind the scenes on the show, I’ll be sharing more of my favorite finds, along with the products, podcasts, books, and memes that spark my creativity. If you choose to become a paid subscriber, you are directly contributing to our mission of helping women feel confident about cannabis for health, well being, and for fun.

[00:05:39] Ellen Scanlon: I hope you’ll go to our website, DoThePot. com, or directly to Substack to subscribe. I’ll add all the details to the show notes. Thank you. I really appreciate your support for the show.

[00:05:58] Ellen Scanlon: I grew up on the East Coast, mostly in Connecticut, where fall is a beautiful and very distinct time of year. Back when I was in middle school, my parents would pack our family into the car to take long drives in New England. We were told to look at the fall leaves and generally enjoy the beauty of the surroundings.

[00:06:22] Ellen Scanlon: It was not my favorite thing then. But it sounds pretty great now that I live in Northern California, where the seasonal weather changes are much more subtle. Chef Jen Felmley is based in San Diego, where the beautiful weather doesn’t change very much. Jen loves the foods that help her celebrate fall in Southern California.

[00:06:45] Chef Jenn Felmley: Well, I will start with I am a November baby, so it’s my birthday. I live in San Diego. I’m a born and raised Southern California native, so we’re a little bit different. We have our lobster season in the fall, which also falls around my birthday. So those are my fun celebrations. All the fun, like fall, winter, leave things.

[00:07:05] Chef Jenn Felmley: Love that stuff. Love that for you. As a West coast girl, we’re more of like, this is the time I can go to my local place and get a plate of Rosarita style lobster. Like it’s basically like a deep fried lobster that served with tortillas and beans and rice and a michelada. Uh, I can sit out over the ocean in San Diego, it’s like the perfect temperature, it’s not too hot, not too cold.

[00:07:29] Chef Jenn Felmley: That’s my season. 

[00:07:31] Ellen Scanlon: Christina Wong is a chef, writer, and content creator, and she’s also based in California. She paints a vivid picture of the abundance that surrounds us during this time of year. 

[00:07:44] Chef Christina Wong: It’s harvest. If you travel around to all of the farms, weed farms, vegetable farms, like everyone is just brimming with abundance.

[00:07:51] Chef Christina Wong: It’s summer’s bounty and you’ve got tomatoes and squashes and corns. And if you’re in wine country, the grapes, it’s like grape harvest for wine. The grapes are really nice this time of year because they’re nice and crunchy. And then the apples are going to come in and you’ve got your pumpkins and the squashes.

[00:08:06] Chef Christina Wong: I love this because it’s that harvest season where we are taking what nature gave us. enjoying it, sharing it, and then preserving what’s available so that we can use it for the winter. So whether it’s cooking it down into an apple butter or pumpkin butters, preserves, jams, I love all of these activities and all of the yummy things.

[00:08:30] Ellen Scanlon: Christina’s relationships with farmers have helped to build a deeper connection with the food that she cooks and eats. She considers cannabis an ingredient, and thinks about it in the same way that she evaluates food. 

[00:08:44] Chef Christina Wong: We’re talking about apples today. Consider this, if you are going to the store, and you’re going to your farmer’s market, and you’re buying apples, do you want to buy organic apples?

[00:08:54] Chef Christina Wong: What if you’re going to the farmer’s market and you actually get to meet the farmer who’s growing the apples? Or if you get to go to the orchard to pick the apples and you see how they make it and that level of connection to our food is really important. Eating locally, eating organic or natural whenever possible.

[00:09:11] Chef Christina Wong: You know, I’m not a purist. I’m not able to afford organic everything all the time, but if you are somebody who is conscious about that or you want to try to make more conscious decisions, we should be thinking about our cannabis in the same way. as you would those apples. So when you walk into the dispensary, say, Hey, you know, are there any that are organically grown?

[00:09:30] Chef Christina Wong: No pesticides are used. I’m looking for outdoor, you know, when I think about these beautiful summer tomatoes that we have coming in, or these, you know, the fall squashes and the pumpkins, I don’t want pesticides sprayed on those when I’m cooking in them and putting them in my pies and my drink. And I feel the same way about my cannabis, whether I’m smoking it or making edibles.

[00:09:49] Chef Christina Wong: And most of the cannabis in the dispensary are generally free of pesticides, but for me, that connection with the farmer and knowing how it’s grown, seeing the love and the care that’s put into it, it makes a big difference. 

[00:10:04] Ellen Scanlon: Jane West, who you heard from at the beginning of the episode, loves to share this simple tip that she learned from a chef friend.

[00:10:12] Ellen Scanlon: Before you start cooking with cannabis, don’t forget to do this. 

[00:10:16] Jane West: One of the things that blew my mind that actually now I’m like, I cannot believe that was so shocking to me at the time was when cooking with your cannabis, you should be cleaning it before you’re cooking it. And I always bring this up whenever we’re talking about cooking cannabis, because most people are just like, what?

[00:10:34] Jane West: So I attended a cooking session that Robin was putting on and she had all this weed, like really showing someone from scratch, how you do this. And she took all the flour. and put it into a giant french press and soaked it with water, which I had never seen before. I was like, wait, what is she doing? She’s going to like wash off all the good parts, which does not happen.

[00:10:54] Jane West: That is not what happened at all. But after cleaning it in that French press and then, you know, squeezing it down and pouring out the water, the water was so dirty. This plant is growing outside. I have a garden. I wouldn’t pick my kale or my romaine lettuce and not clean it. 

[00:11:11] Ellen Scanlon: One more practical tip before we get into the recipes.

[00:11:16] Ellen Scanlon: The crucial part of cooking with weed is that you have to actually cook the weed or decarboxylate it to bring on the effects of the THC. Preheat your oven to 225 and place the cannabis on a parchment lined baking sheet. Let it bake for 20 to 25 minutes until it’s very fragrant. Please be warned, that means it is probably going to smell up your kitchen.

[00:11:45] Ellen Scanlon: Be careful not to let the cannabis burn. Try an oven thermometer to keep an eye on the consistency of the temperature. When the cannabis has decarboxylated, it will be a deep brownish green color. Cannabis cookbooks and Google are a great help here. Your oven and the quality of the cannabis will play a role in the timing.

[00:12:09] Ellen Scanlon: Can you just throw the weed onto a cookie sheet or do you need to grind it? It seems to be personal preference whether you grind the weed before or after cooking it. Whatever you decide, experts recommend grinding it to about the same consistency that you would use for a joint. After it’s cooked, you’re going to be straining it, probably with a cheesecloth, so don’t make it too fine.

[00:12:38] Ellen Scanlon: This is a perfect time to tell you about our really exciting giveaway. How To Do The Pot is partnering with our friends at Sackville Co., the women run brand known for their stylish smoking accessories. We are offering one lucky winner their iconic I Love New York Big Apple Grinder, which has a 50 value.

[00:13:02] Ellen Scanlon: This three tier pop art inspired grinder features a sleek red exterior, a deep set bowl, diamond sharp teeth, and a twist off design for easy cleaning. It’s perfect for grinding enough for a day in Central Park or making a bold statement on your shelf. To enter, please complete a quick survey and you’ll automatically be in the running.

[00:13:30] Ellen Scanlon: I’ll add a link to the show Good luck!

[00:13:41] Ellen Scanlon: Experienced cannabis chefs often recommend making an oil or butter. If you’re new to cooking with cannabis, Chef Michelle Fox suggests starting with a salad dressing. 

[00:13:54] Chef Michellee Fox: I make this green goddess dressing. I infuse olive oil with decarboxylated CBD flour. And then just green THC flour. I don’t put it in the oven.

[00:14:09] Chef Michellee Fox: So I put a bunch of bud in a jar and I fill it with olive oil and I let that infuse for a few days. You can find that a lot of green goddess dressings are pretty common, standard. Salad dressing, and then I just use the olive oil that is infused with cannabis instead of regular olive oil. And then I use that green dressing to obviously make salads, as a dipping sauce.

[00:14:34] Chef Michellee Fox: You can rub it on chicken, pork, steak, and let it marinate, and then fry it after. So yeah, I use that green goddess in so many ways. And you can use the same idea for for any dressing that you’re going to make. 

[00:14:49] Ellen Scanlon: If you’re looking to add cannabis to beverages like tea, Christina Wong likes to use an alcohol based tincture.

[00:14:56] Chef Christina Wong: Using an alcohol based tincture is my favorite way to infuse beverages because it’s water soluble. If you’re using an oil based tincture that’s made with a coconut oil, an MCT oil, or olive oil, that oil is going to float on top and it’s not going to really mix really well unless you’ve got a beverage that has some flavor.

[00:15:15] Chef Christina Wong: Fat or something that it can sit in. But if it’s just a water-based drink, like a tea and you’re gonna boil it anyways. I love alcohol tinctures. Most of the tinctures, if you’re going into your local dispensary, most of them are going to be an MCT oil base. I do see a lot of olive oil. There are. Some that might be alcohol, but honestly, it’s hard to find in your dispensary.

[00:15:38] Chef Christina Wong: It’s much easier just to make your own. I was nervous about making an alcohol tincture and making it too strong, but honestly, making your alcohol based tincture is so easy. It’s easier than making can of butter. It’s easier than infusing. You just decarb your flour like you normally would. Put it in a mason jar, get the highest proof alcohol that you can find.

[00:15:59] Chef Christina Wong: Everclear is the best, but in California you can’t find Everclear. So a Bacardi 151 or anything that’s like over 120, 150 proof, and you just pour it over your decarbed flour. And then like, there’s math that you have to do to calculate how much, but. That’s it. You just pour it over it, shake it up, put it in the freezer, let it sit for a couple days, shake it a little more, strain out the pieces, and then you have an alcohol tincture and that’s it.

[00:16:27] Chef Christina Wong: So it’s actually incredibly cost effective. So if you’re going to your dispensary, I’d recommend go find a really affordable eighth. Shake or pre ground is, it’s not going to taste as nice. You could, um, if you have some cheap trim or some shake, it’ll totally work. And then you just strain it out. That’s it.

[00:16:45] Ellen Scanlon: Now that you’ve learned how to make an alcohol infused tincture, you can also make infused sugar. 

[00:16:51] Chef Christina Wong: It’s like a two step process, like in order to make cannabis infused sugar, you have to make the cannabis tincture. You have to make an alcohol based tincture, and then you take the tincture and you pour it over the sugar, you let it dry, let all that alcohol evaporate, and what you’re kind of left with is like this crusty pan of A lightly green tinted sugar and you kind of have to like break it all up and get it all powdery again and that’s cannabis infused sugar basically and you can just add a spoonful of that to any of your recipes or drink or even with honey.

[00:17:24] Ellen Scanlon: Christina breaks down the math to make an alcohol tincture in her Substack newsletter. Check out the link in the show notes to find it.

[00:17:38] Ellen Scanlon: 1906 is a cannabis brand that’s all about microdosing, which makes it easier than ever to get comfortable with weed. You don’t have to fit a certain stereotype and you don’t have to smoke to get the benefits of cannabis anymore. There are discreet and convenient ways to incorporate it into your life.

[00:17:59] Ellen Scanlon: 1906 makes edibles called drops that are as easy to take as a pill. There’s no chewing required. One of their most popular products is their sleep drop. It’s designed to calm your mind and body promote drowsiness and help you fall asleep and stay asleep through the night. And now 1906 ships nationwide.

[00:18:24] Ellen Scanlon: Women love 1906. I love 1906 and I think you will too. Visit 1906. shop today and use promo code, do the pot for 15 percent off your order. I’ll add all the details to the show notes. Thank you for supporting the brands that support our show.

[00:18:50] Ellen Scanlon: With all this talk of apples, it brought back memories of trying to figure out how to smoke weed out of an apple. I couldn’t resist asking Jane West if she’s ever smoked out of an apple, and she shared a great story. 

[00:19:06] Jane West: I founded Women Grow in 2014 and we decided to go to Washington DC and support these Lobby Day efforts.

[00:19:15] Jane West: And at the time, we had just started this newsletter and collecting email addresses for there may be like a thousand people on the newsletter. And at the last minute, two weeks before we were going to DC, we were like, you know, we should just message everyone on our newsletter and be like, Hey, we’re going to DC.

[00:19:31] Jane West: If you want to meet us, and if you want to take part in some of this Lobby Day stuff, you should come. And We ended up getting like 85 women who were like, we’re coming. We booked some rooms at this Kimpton hotel and we booked a meeting room there so we could brief everyone on lobby days and how this works and whatnot.

[00:19:51] Jane West: And it was amazing. And a lot of the women that came there formed bonds that are, they’re still very close today. Some of them have businesses together today. I mean, this we’re talking about like February, 2015. So we booked this room. We have the lobby efforts, but of course Everybody wants to smoke and everyone wants to do whatever.

[00:20:07] Jane West: It’s cold. It’s February in DC. I had never seen it before I’d never used an apple bong before but there weren’t any really smoke shops around and they went to the Whole Foods and got apples and dug into these apples and showing everyone in this little hotel room like how to do it I mean, there’s like 15 of us in this room and we’re all smoking a lot of weed.

[00:20:31] Jane West: And of course, of course, like, we’re gonna get in trouble for something like that. So the security guard caught the, you know, people have been like kind of tapping on the door, like tap, tap, tap, like let me in, let me in, you know, coming in until there’s like, there’s people sitting on the ground, sitting on the bed, sitting on the bed, right.

[00:20:47] Jane West: So many, so many women. And then there’s a knock on the door that’s like, knock, knock, knock, knock. Like, and we’re like, oh shit, we’re going to get jumped. Okay, so we open the door and I’ll tell you this security guard, he definitely did not think that what was going to be behind this door was like 20 women in their like 30s and 40s handing around like two apple pipes.

[00:21:12] Jane West: Like he just stood there for a minute. Just like, Processing what he was looking at and then he was just like, Ladies can’t do this. You can’t do this in here. Like he was so polite about it. We were like we’re gonna Look, we’re gonna find another spot, you know, but uh, it was so funny And that was yeah, that was the first time I smoked out of an apple pipe and it wasn’t that bad 

[00:21:38] Ellen Scanlon: Christina Wong hasn’t ever smoked out of an apple.

[00:21:42] Ellen Scanlon: She has made a pumpkin bong. 

[00:21:45] Chef Christina Wong: A couple years ago, I did do a bodaciously botanical pumpkin bong. I love doing this in the fall. It’s actually a really fun activity to do. If you go Trader Joe’s, wherever you get your pumpkins for Halloween, and then hollow out your pumpkin, and then you can put little holes on the side.

[00:22:03] Chef Christina Wong: It’s technically a pipe and not a bong. You have to add water to make it a bong. But, the alliteration works better that way. And so I made this cute little pumpkin bong that you could smoke out of. And the trick with making a pumpkin bong is that you have to like see, like you cut around the top to be able to lift it up and like dig out all of the seeds, right?

[00:22:22] Chef Christina Wong: And then save the seeds and you can roast those and make pumpkin seeds, but then you have to seal it. To be able to get a nice tight air seal for the air to flow So I like to use a little paper towel and I like fold it and kind of like put it around the top To really get it like a nice seal before I smoke out of it And then the delightful side effect of that is that you get this really nice like pumpkin flavored like bong hit.

[00:22:48] Chef Christina Wong: And it smells so good. It tastes so good. 

[00:22:51] Ellen Scanlon: Now that you know how to infuse an oil tincture, salad dressing, or sugar, you are ready to cook. Chef Jen Felmley shares her recipe for a West Coast inspired, super yummy Waldorf salad. 

[00:23:07] Chef Jenn Felmley: I do a Southern California take on a classic Waldorf salad. So, apples, dried cherries, we’re gonna put in some grapes, some celeries, some toasted walnuts, and then normally it’s got this like, super, almost like southern mayonnaise y like salad dressing that’s great and classic, but again we’re southern California so I’m gonna put in like Greek yogurt, some lemon juice, so it’s like really bright, really crisp, really refreshing, but you’re still getting your nuts, your dried cherries, your apples, your kind of fall flavors.

[00:23:41] Ellen Scanlon: I asked Chef Jen how she likes to add cannabis to the salad. 

[00:23:45] Chef Jenn Felmley: So there’s about five different ways you could infuse it. You could throw in a little bit of cannabis sugar. You could add in cannabis infused honey into the dressing. I think the easiest thing is just to say, grab a little bit of a tincture, add a couple drops into your dressing, whisk to emulsify, and you’ve got your infused dressing, and then you’re going to toss it together.

[00:24:03] Chef Jenn Felmley: So for the salad, we’re going to start with like a simple dressing. So that’s going to be lemon juice or vinegar or combination. And then, uh, for any dressing, you’re going to need something sweet and a little bit of something to emulsify, which is going to be like your honey and Dijon mustard, or your maple or agave and some kind of Dijon mustard.

[00:24:22] Chef Jenn Felmley: So we’re going to make a simple vinaigrette, and then we’re going to whisk in a little bit of Greek yogurt. Simple, very, very simple. Like that could be your dressing that, quite honestly, becomes your dressing you put in your fridge and use on salads. If you want to add like, literally a package of ranch dressing mixed to that.

[00:24:38] Chef Jenn Felmley: You suddenly now have ranch dressing. Like this could be your healthy salad base for anything. And again, at this point you can add a couple drops of a tincture. You could have used a cannabis infused honey. And I also feel like using something like yogurt or mayonnaise or Dijon mustard, again, is going to help to emulsify your tincture into your dressing.

[00:24:58] Chef Jenn Felmley: Your tinctures are generally going to be oil based. So that oil and water don’t want to mix and they’re going to want to separate. So something that’s going to help to bind them or hold them together are going to be those emulsifiers. That’s going to be your honey, your Dijon mustard, your, your maple syrup, your agave nectar, something like that.

[00:25:14] Chef Jenn Felmley: Anytime I’m doing something that’s going to contain cannabis, I do want to have some kind of bold flavors. So in this case, I’m going to add in dried cherries and either walnuts or pecans because I want them to be, To both be able to pair with the cannabis flavor, but also like, party with it, if that makes sense.

[00:25:33] Chef Jenn Felmley: Separately from my dressing, I have a bowl. I have some chopped up apples. I maybe have tossed them in a little bit of lemon juice, or a little bit of orange juice, just to keep them from going brown. I’m gonna add in some chopped up celery, some cut up grapes, those walnuts that we talked about, and some dried cherries.

[00:25:49] Chef Jenn Felmley: And then I’m going to toss those in the dressing. I’m going to take a couple of lettuce leaves, whether that is like a Boston leaf or romaine, or a couple of leaves of lettuce just to put underneath. Because let’s be honest, that kind of vegetable or fruit based salad is lovely, but it’s not a salad without lettuce.

[00:26:06] Chef Jenn Felmley: So we’re going to put a couple pieces of lettuce on the plate. 

[00:26:09] Ellen Scanlon: To check out the full instructions and measurements for this recipe, I’ll add a link in the show notes. Stay tuned for part three of our series next week. We’ll dig into making edibles, how to customize your food to get the effects you want, and how to prepare for a party.

[00:26:29] Ellen Scanlon: Plus, we’ll share an East Coast inspired delicious fall recipe. What are your favorite ways to cook with cannabis and do you have any favorite recipes? Please reach out to us at Hi at DoThePot. com or DM us at DoThePot. I’d love to share your tips in a future episode. Thank you for listening to How to Do The Pot.

[00:26:52] Ellen Scanlon: I want to welcome our many new listeners and I’m so excited to have you. I’m really grateful for your support and truly appreciate it when you tell your friends. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways to help podcasts like ours reach more people.

[00:27:13] Ellen Scanlon: For lots more information and past episodes, visit do the pot. com. And that’s also where you can sign up for our newsletter. If you like how to do the pot, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts. It really helps more people find the show. Thanks to our producers, Maddy Fair and Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon and stay tuned for more of how to do the pot.