Forget playing pranks, filing taxes and little miss horny Mother Nature. When April rolls around, every conscious stoner starts crossing off the days until the most glorious holiday this side of Groundhog Day – 420. Some vets have been planning their festivities since last year’s comedown. Others are laying out the blue prints for this round’s ounce blunt. But what would the holidays be without a feast of illustrious proportions? In honor of getting creative with your herbs, I’ve consulted with one of Isla Vista’s most prodigious chefs to get you all started on some incredible, edible creations for your 420 bash.
Most recipes my chef Jondo uses involve about one to two ounces of shake, but vaporized weed works wonders, too. If you want, you can use your stickiest icky, but we’d rather scrounge the bottom of the bag than sacrifice some bomb chronic. And the clubs downtown push an ounce of shake for about 35 bucks. You can do the math, we’re too baked too count.
For the noobs out there, edibles begin with the simmering process. In order to separate the essential oils from the ganja fibers, you’ll need to steep your greens in cooking oil, milk or a butter and water mixture. Whichever you choose is entirely personal preference, but the possibilities with all three are unbounded. If you don’t test them all out, you’ll be settling for magic brownies when you could have a whole mystery tour on your plate.
Oil is far out with Asian cooking, vegetable dishes and other oil-based recipes. Milk can be used in ice cream and other desserts, as well as in drinks, hot or cold. With butter, however, the possibilities are a little danker. Jondo says it best: “Any recipe you do with butter, you can with weed butter. And that’s like any food, ever.”
For recipes that require butter, you’ll need about one to two ounces of greens for every two sticks of butter you’re using. Throw these in a pan with a couple cups of water then simmer it all over low heat for about an hour. Be careful not to boil or burn your concoction, otherwise the THC will denature and all of your friends will be questioning your cooking skills instead of the nature of reality. We’ve come across methods in the past that didn’t employ water, but the advantage to using good old H2O is that it helps to separate the oil from the leaves or stems, producing a higher yield in the process. Plus, your shit will be a whole lot stronger.
Once you’re done simmering, strain the leaves, stems or whatever is left of the weed from the mixture. You can repeat the process again with these greens to really extract all of the THC oil, but more than twice is overkill. When you’ve gotten out all the ganja, leave the weed butter in the fridge for about an hour. This will cause the butter to naturally separate from the water and rise to the surface. Once it’s separated, simply poke a hole in the butter layer and drain off the water, then scoop off the top layer of butter and you’re set.
If desserts are more your thing, then milk weed is a valuable commodity. Using the same method as with butter and water, simply steep an ounce or two of weed with a cup or two of milk, but avoid burning the milk at all costs. Now your edibles will build strong bones and strong minds.
Simmering your ganja in oil is pretty much the same as the earlier methods. Using about one to two ounces of greens for every one cup of cooking oil, simmer on low heat for about an hour – no burning, no boiling, smooth as butter, baby.
So now that you have the beginnings of a delicious 420 feast, where do you go from here? Well, the possibilities are endless. We recommend being creative with it, doing whatever pops into your faded mind. The best idea I’ve ever heard Jondo mention, other than climbing Lizard’s Mouth, is using weed butter for Buffalo wings – I practically drooled on myself. All I thought about was what a juicy Buffalo wing would do for my ghost riding reputation. I’d be an Oaktown legend, biatch.
But we’re in Isla Vista. So be an Isla Vista legend next Friday and I’ll catch y’all rolling in the park the next day – I’ll probably be sporting a few crumbs in my stubble.