Labor Day Dessert!

I’d like to start this week with a question. Why would you share these recipes on Facebook without actually making them for yourself? This isn’t to say I don’t appreciate you disseminating my wonderful recipes and less than wonderful sense of humor, but this is something that’s irked me ever since I started writing as The Ganja Gourmand. Obviously, I’m not the only one being shared–those Tasty videos get passed around the Internet like table salt at Thanksgiving–but it’s concerning that my readers have made the mistake that food is to be looked at, not eaten. I blame Instagram.

The virtual world of social media is a carefully curated, image-driven, window into someone’s life. That’s to say not everything is shared. Case and point: you don’t take selfies at a funeral. That’d be weird. Given that the first sentence of this paragraph is true, there has to be a reason for this curation, a message if you will. As an amateur Internet psychologist, I’ve pooled a few resources together to help me figure out what this message is. No, Marshall McLuhan fans, in this case, the medium is not the message.

On the one hand, as with all social media, there’s a huge degree of narcissism implicit in posting pictures on your feed. Posting pictures of food you cooked yourself is all about you and your wonderful creation, but at least you created something and are trying to share it with the world. Posting pictures of food you ordered in a restaurant is a type of doubling down on your own self-absorption. You’re essentially bragging about how much you paid for it or how adventurous an eater you are, passing the chef’s creation off as your own achievement. You may think you’re doing this for all of your followers, who love your posts, but how you respond when Jenny or Kyle post a picture of Devil’s Food Cake? If you answer this with anything other than “roll my eyes” you’re lying. Neither Jenny nor Kyle is a professional photographer, and I’m willing to bet that the restaurant has captured the scintillating moisture of their famous cake and posted it on Instagram with a far better camera than the one on Kyle’s Samsung Galaxy.

Listen, I know I’m being hard on you. I had a bad week and I’m sorry. But, if you repost a recipe, it’s only aspirational if you actually follow through and make the thing, if not, you might as well videotape yourself rifling through the pages of Bon Appétit. I’m training you to be cannabis chefs. You will not be members of the salivating masses, reposting and blogging about dishes you’d never dare make. I don’t spend my Friday afternoons writing these ridiculous posts because I want to. I do it because I want you to cook delicious meals that you can eat and get high from, so you can have a slice of pie, get stoned, and watch Goodfellas for the 50th time, all without smoking. And before you ask, yes, I do get paid to write these recipes. But we’re talking about you here, not me. And this week, you’re making pie.

Pecan pie that’ll get you high. Hey that one wasn’t bad!

Recipe adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients:

Syrup Mixture

1 3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup dark corn syrup

1-2 ounces of cannabutter (Remember what I said a few weeks ago about judging potency? If you tried a recipe with your cannabutter already and it was super strong, try cutting this with regular salted butter to decrease the strength. If you found your last recipe was lacking a certain fortitude, cut the salted butter in this recipe with more cannabutter. )

3/4 stick salted butter

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon cold water

Cold Ingredients

3 Eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup chopped pecans

1 unbaked pie shell (if you want bonus points, here’s a good recipe for piecrust)

Step One: Preheat The Oven

Preheat the oven to 350˚F.

Preheat The OvenGoogle Images

Step 2: Combining Ingredients

Combine the butter, cannabutter, sugar, corn syrup, water and cornstarch and bring the mixture to a boil. After it boils, remove from heat.

Combining IngredientsGoogle Images

Step 3: Mix The Eggs

Mix eggs in a bowl until they are frothy. Gradually add your hot syrup mixture. Add pecans, salt and vanilla and stir well.

Mix The EggsGoogle Images

Step 4: Bake The Pie

Pour the mixture into the pie crust. Bake it for about 45 minutes or until the filling sets.

Bake The PieGoogle Images