Welcome to the Reader’s cannabis column To Be Blunt. We’re here to answer your canna questions with the help of budtenders, attorneys, medical practitioners, chefs, researchers, legislators, and patient care advocates. Send your cannabis queries to tobeblunt@chicagoreader.com.
Q: I’ve never made edibles. What’s a quick, easy, foolproof recipe? I don’t want to waste my weed!
A: Dear Reader reader,
We’ve asked Michael McGee, founder of the Medical Cannabis Recipes Community, to share a simple recipe with us. His response, which has been edited for length and clarity, is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as dosing or medical advice.
“For your first go at making ‘medibles,’ or for seasoned bakers who want a quick, easy treat, here’s a recipe that even the newest baker can get right. There’s no need to be intimidated by all the technicalities of decarboxylation* and infusion into butter or oil. Worry about stinking up the house or spending hours cleaning up canna-sludge.
“A good place to start with is the standby, a young stoner fave: the Firecracker! It is also a good confidence builder to get you started in the exciting world of cannabis cooking.
“Firecrackers are a go-to edible because they are quick and stealthy to make and require little skill and few materials. You probably already have a grinder, some bud, aluminum foil, and an oven, right? Well, with some flower, graham crackers, and peanut butter, Nutella, or almost any high-fat spread of your choosing, you can have yourself a classic canna-snack in less than an hour!
“Using a high-fat spread is the key to this recipe, so if you use peanut butter, make sure it isn’t low-fat, or use something like full-fat cream cheese. Using high-fat ingredients in edibles helps your body absorb the THC, which is soluble in fat and alcohol. Infusing the cannabis into the fatty spread makes it more bioavailable, which means more of that medicine ends up where you want it to go.”
The Firecracker
Ingredients:
- Five full graham crackers
- Enough peanut butter, Nutella, or other high-fat spread to cover the graham crackers and make sandwiches
- Half a gram to a gram of good bud
Get bakin’:
- Heat the oven to 325 degrees and lay out some aluminum foil.
- Break the graham crackers into squares and smear spread on each square.
- Grind the bud as finely as you can with a grinder.
- Sprinkle the ground bud evenly on the smeared graham crackers.
- Make sandwiches by smushing two crackers together, making sure the bud is in full contact with the spread.
- Wrap each snack individually in foil.
- Place each foil sandwich on a cookie sheet or right on the oven rack.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
- Let the sandwiches cool and prepare to get baked!
“Pro tip: To keep the smell down, leave the sandwiches wrapped in foil until they’re cool enough to eat.
“If you are new to this, I recommend using half a gram over five full graham crackers and ‘self- titrating’ by testing the dosage slowly on yourself. That means starting with a bite or two of one grahamwich. You may have an idea how many milligrams you can handle from using dispensary edibles, so keep in mind thata gram of good greenage can have up to 250 mg of THC. Give yourself at least an hour to see how you feel. For some, it can take up to three hours to feel the effects of an edible; every body is different. You will learn how much is a good dose for you.
“If you get too much, you will get and remain majorly high for many hours. Once an edible is ingested, there’s little you can do to stop its effects (some say CBD helps, others say fresh lemon juice, but I’ve never tried either myself). No one has died from a cannabis overdose, but eat too much and you may feel like you will be the first!
“For storage, keep the treats in a clearly labeled, airtight container out of reach of children.
Happy medicating!”
*Decarboxylation: a chemical reaction that converts THCA, the nonpsychoactive precursor to THC, into THC. If you want to get high, or reap the benefits of THC, you’ll need to decarboxylate your cannabis, which happens when it is exposed to heat.”
Editors’ note: If anyone figures out how many passes these need through an Easy-Bake oven please let us know! Share your answers and recipes with us at tobeblunt@chicagoreader.com.
Michael McGee is the founder of Medical Cannabis Recipes Community, a volunteer patient-helping-patient community created to help Illinois medical cannabis patients learn how to save money by making their own capsules, tinctures, oils, and edibles. He applied for his Illinois medical cannabis card in 2017 in what proved to be a successful attempt to reduce or eliminate the many opioids, muscle relaxers, and benzodiazepines he’d been prescribed since 2011 to manage disc and spinal issues. v