Cooking Cookin': Green Cheese

[nEone]

So - if you're like some people - you're not a fan of smoking. Sure, you smoked when you were younger and then it took you 5 or 6 years to finally ditch that pack of Marlboros for good. But with your freshly pinked lungs, the occational bong rip will send you into a fit of coughing and even the sweetest joint brings tears to your eyes.

You're not a smoker anymore.

You've had some space cake - you've had brownies. The high lasts 5 times as long - creeps up on you in a charming giggly way - and doesn't fuck with your lungs. But you're kind of sick of sweets - you're wishing for a savory solution.

If that sounds familiar - then consider this: Making brownies works because THC is soluble in fat. When you make any kind of brownie or cake or butter two things happen: 1. You do a very crude extraction by simmering your pot in butter (ie. fat) and 2. You activate the cannibanoids by heating them up as you simmer them in butter. There are a lot of discussions and directions for making Canna-Butter. But the effectiveness of the butter has overshadowed a simple fact - butter isn't the only high-fat food around.

Milk is also high in fat (Actually, butter is just milk that's been agitated - so it's the same fat, just with less water in it). And if you play your cards right, you can make a very simple, very tasty cheese that can be measured/divided/frozen and used at your discretion.


Here's what you need:

1 Gallon of whole milk
2 tablespoons of lemon juice (concentrate/fresh squeezed/whatever)
Cheese Cloth (they sell it in the grocery store with baking items)
A strainer / collander
A large bowl
2 large pots
A stove or heat source
Salt/Pepper/Spices (optional)
Weed

Take say, an 1/8 of weed - grind or chop it up. Not too fine, fine enough that you could roll joints with it. Take a gallon of WHOLE MILK and put it into a large pot (large enough that if it boils up, it's not going to instantly overflow). Put it on medium-high heat. Sprinkle in the weed. It'll smell awesome as it heats up. It will also smell a LOT LIKE WEED - so if that's gonna be an issue (neighbors/parents/flatmates)- think about it before you begin. It will take a while to get to the point where the milk is simmering nicely.

Be patient and DON'T GET HIGH WHILE YOU"RE DOING THIS. Flames + boiling milk + stoned cook = one giant dangerous mess.

Bring the weed/milk to a high simmer and then turn the heat down a little so that you avoid having the milk boil. Look, if it boils a little, don't flip out - but if you walk away and come back and it's been at a raging boil for 15 minutes - you're gonna kick yourself. For reference, a simmer means that the surface is dancing about, but bubbles aren't gurgling up all over the places - one or two bubbles, or little tiny bubbles - fine. Let the milk simmer for 30 minutes.

Lucky for you, milk has protein in it, so if it DOES boil, you're going to have a GIANT mess because it will foam up and go everywhere and you'll have a lot more to worry about than a wasted 1/8th. So, simmer it for 30ish minutes.

If you're confident - toss in some salt/pepper/seasonings. If you're not - don't worry about it. If it's your first batch - skip it. If you think you're clever, thow in some green food coloring.

While it's boiling, take some cheese cloth and line the collander/strainer with it. Put the strainer over the second pot.

When 30 minutes is up, do a little dance - turn off the heat - and VERY CAREFULLY pour the milk through the strainer/cheese cloth into the second pot. The weed will collect in the cloth. Twist it up, and squeeze it out over the pot so that you get all the goodness out. Remember that the liquid is REALLY HOT so when you're squeezing it out, use caution. Wear rubber gloves or something. Toss the spent herb.

Re-line the strainer with fresh cheese cloth.

Put the herb-infused milk BACK onto the fire to bring it back up to a simmer. When it gets there, turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. It may take a little less or a little more than 2 tablespoons - but at some point, the milk will break.

It's gross. The milk will separate into floaty chunks and a thin water. It's ok, I promise.

Once again, CAREFULLY pour the now-chunky liquid through the cheese-cloth. You can do this into the old pot or right into the sink. The water is junk. Ditch it.

The cheese cloth will collect the chunks. They'll be wet and soft. Gather the cloth together, and twist the cloth around so that it tightens the lumps together into a ball and squeezes out a lot of juice. Tighten it and squeeze it, tighten it again. Don't go overboard, just get it nice and tight. Leave the ball in the strainer.

Put a bowl in the fridge, but the strainer over the bowl. Put something heavy (5lb weight, Ayn Rand's The Fountain Head, whatever...) on the bundle and leave it over night (in the fridge!). The weight will press out any further water and you'll be left with a nice solid ball of WEED CHEESE. Probably about 2 cups worth.

Now - here's one way of measuring it:

Figure out how many joints/bowls/whatever an 1/8th of the weed you used is worth. All weed is different, so it's up to you to know how much you'd normally smoke to get you where you want to be.

Divide the Cheese up into that many segments. If you used amazing crystally kush - you could have 20 servings. If you used gutter weed that your little brother grew - you could have 2 servings. But just treat the cheese like it is representative of the 1/8th that you used.

The cheese will stay nicely in the fridge for a few weeks, or will freeze and stay good for months.

If all of that is too much of a pain, you could stop at the point where you strained out the spent herb - pop the gallon of milk back into the fridge, add some sugar or something, and voila - you've got weed milk. The perfect partner to your famous pot-brownie...

Reputation Comments on this post:

	3.14
	Fascinating idea: Will definitely try this savoury route

[fnord]

what about ageing for better flavor?any experiance?why only a 1/8?why not an ounce or at least a 1/2?


great write up!

[nEone]

Well - this type of cheese is called Paneer - it doesn't really need to age to build flavor. Aging is where the art of cheesemaking really takes hold - and is probably better reseved for cheeses made with rennet and other ingredients - Panner is a simple farmer's cheese - and easy to make and do right.

For additional flavor, simple salt and pepper is wonderful, or even some simple herb blends (there's a french herb blend called Herbs de Provence which is particularly nice).

As for how much to add - 1/8th vs an Oz vs a Pound - that's probably a better question for a scientist - but one would guess that there is a certain threshold - a saturation point if you will that the fat in the milk can hold - at which point, you reach an equilibrium and anything more than that would simply not transfer over.

Also, since this is something you're eating - you're not looking for STRENGTH as much as portionability. Your end result is approx 2 Cups. You don't want to make 2 cups of cheese that only requires 1/8th of a teaspoon to rock your socks off. That's science and chemistry...this is CULINARY.

It's a little silly to make a brownie that can serve 15 people. You want to enjoy the BROWNIE just as much as you want to enjoy the ride. Same thing goes for the cheese. This isn't about super-concentrating the drug - this is about cooking something enjoyable.

So really, the amount you use is a matter of taste - but 1/8th is a good starting point where you end up with a very measurable and decent product.

As with all edibles - watch out for the creeper effect - it takes time to kick in and even more time to peak - but it will also last you most of the day. How many times have you been 45 minutes into a nice brownie and thought - "man, I'm right where I want to be...I should eat a little more..." - only to spend the next 15 minutes going up and up - and then finding yourself floored for 3 hours when the second brownie kicks in.