Making The Perfect White Miso Pesto

Marge (00:00:06) - Welcome back friends. Thanks for joining me today. We've got a great episode for you. We're covering white miso pesto. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your hi life. I'm your host and Certified Ganjier. Marge and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for joining me today. Welcome back, my friends. Thanks for joining me today. As you're just joining me for the first time, I am here to help cooks make great edibles at home. And I do that by doing a recipe that I've tested out in my own home cook kitchen, or I did. I cover this in the introduction I've prerecorded and I post every single week and I don't really listen to. Fuck. Maybe I did, but I also do interviews and I have a wonderful recipe for you today, and I think you're really going to enjoy it, because I certainly did. But before we get into it, I have a couple of housekeeping items.

Marge (00:01:01) - And once again, if you're joining me for the first time, welcome. And if you've been a long time listener and you're tuning in once again, your listenership truly means the world to me, because I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for listeners out there who were supporting me like you are right now by lending me your ear. Now, normally this might be where I would do a,, a stoner trivia, but I am in transit. I will be doing some traveling for the next little bit and I forgot the cards. Sorry. When I do forget the card, so we may have to put a pause on that for the time being. And I know many of you might be heartbroken who are keeping a score out there. There's probably at least one of you. But alas, you'll have to store up your stoner trivia for the next time. And I'm going to be on the road for a bit. But I have some super exciting stuff coming up that I'm really bursting at the seams to talk about, but until some of it's been solidified, I don't think it would be prudent for me to mention it just yet.

Marge (00:01:57) - But exciting things on the horizon. Now, I also wanted to give a shout out to a couple of kind souls who recently bought me a cookie, and it's been a minute since anybody has done that. And it really warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart when people decide to support me in this way. Because I know that well. I mean, I live in this world, like along with all the rest of you. And times are tough. Everything's expensive. So anybody who goes out there and puts out a few bucks to help me out, keep this podcast running, that says an awful lot. So thank you both to Jamie and Carl. And Carl left a message saying thanks for the nice content, great voice, fantastic recipes. And I got to say, I appreciate the feedback, especially on my voice, because like most people, I am not too crazy about the sound of my own voice. So it's always nice to hear that people enjoy listening to it. But. I guess that comes with the territory and fantastic recipes.

Marge (00:02:58) - Carl, I think you're going to enjoy today's recipe as well. And Jamie, also thank you for your your message that you send to. So you can always do the same if you want. There's at the bottom of the show notes. If you go over to the website, you can scroll down or find it or find it on the website or whatever if that's something you feel called to do. It really does mean a lot because there are, you know, a few little expenses, and those few little expenses do tend to add up when it comes to running a show. There's lots of behind the scenes things, and I'm dealing with some text headaches right now. And I decided, you know what? I'm going to record this episode to give myself a little break, because if technology doesn't work beautifully sometimes until it doesn't and then it bites in the ass and you spend some time ripping your hero. Let's get into the recipe, shall we? Because that's why we are all here. And this recipe was provided by Zach of Squire's Specialty Elixirs.

Marge (00:03:54) - Now Zach is a chef by trade, and he started an infused elixir company under the name Squire Specialty Elixirs, based in the US by some unconventional means. But you'll hear more about that with the interview that I'll have coming out next week, so you can stay tuned for that, because it was a great conversation, and I'm always impressed by people who take their shot and make something happen, because it's so hard to do something like that. And edibles is a difficult industry to operate in as well already, because you have cannabis regulations, you have food regulations, and then of course you have the fact that cannabis isn't recognized federally in the United States, adding a whole other layer of issues that you have to manage. And so, despite the fact I'm all and despite the fact that I'm all for the self-reliance of growing your own cannabis if you can, or being with friends, being friends with somebody who does, or making your own edibles. I still love to buy edibles when I find ones that align with my values, or ones that are interesting or doing something different.

Marge (00:04:56) - And I think you'll find that edible edibles fall into that category and you'll learn more about that next week. So I really hope you stay tuned and listen to the conversation that I have with Zach. It may have been his first podcast interview I can't quite recall, but I think it was, and he did fabulously. I'd like to think that I put people at ease when they're conversing with me, but it was a great conversation and I think you'll enjoy it. You'll enjoy it as much as I did. But in the meanwhile, he sent me this recipe to tide you all over because I know I love getting recipes from kitchen pros, and a pesto is such a great way to infuse your food, because it's olive oil based, and olive oil is one of my favorite things to infuse because it can lend itself to so many different uses, whether it's. You know, something you ingest or something for your skin, or there's a million different ways you can use olive oil. It's super versatile. Plus it's healthy.

Marge (00:05:53) - And this recipe is also savory. For those of you who are looking for something other than the sweets to get medicated, because God knows there's plenty of ways to get high by eating something sweet. But sometimes if you're trying to watch your sugar or you're just not somebody with a sweet tooth or whatever it is, you want some options. And this is a great one for options. Now, I've done a pesto for this show before, for obvious reasons, because I love pesto and it's delicious. But the addition of the miso in this one was interesting, so I really had to give it a try. And I'll be honest though, I did change up the recipe a little bit for myself. So Zach's listening to this story in advance, but it'll make sense when I tell you why. Because when you're also in your own kitchen, you have total creative control. And the beauty of this recipe is you can do that pretty easily and take control of your whole life, is what I love to say.

Marge (00:06:46) - And I already had miso on hand and it was never opened. And when my daughter had the vegan restaurant before, miso was used a lot in the recipes and it gave it that a lot of recipes, that nice umami flavor, which helps to deepen the flavor of this particular pesto as well and adds a nice robust angle to it, if you will. But the miso that I had on hand wasn't white, and I honestly couldn't tell you what the difference between white and regular miso is. Like white and brown. Brown,, regular miso I believe, is it's just a brown color, a light brown color. So maybe the pesto was darker that it might have been otherwise. If I had made it with white miso, I'm not really sure. Maybe that's a consideration for presentation. But beyond that, I don't really know. So somebody does know. Let me know. You can hit me up because I'm all for learning new things when it comes to stuff in the kitchen. Beyond that, I also used walnuts instead of the required pine nuts because I also had walnuts in the pantry.

Marge (00:07:56) - And frankly, pine nuts are goddamn expensive these days. I mean, they've always been expensive, but in today's economy, what are even pine nuts anyway? I mean, they are good. He does recommend in the recipe that you have the pine nuts and you toast them. So I think that would add also another lovely element to this pesto. So if it's something that you have or you're out shopping and you feel compelled, then go for it. Pine nuts are lovely. I have made pesto with pine nuts before, but it feels like it was so long ago because they were just much less expensive and I don't see pine nuts in stores a whole lot. I have seen them in Costco, but unfortunately that means you have to buy a Costco sized bag of pine nuts. And I can remember the sticker shock of looking at how much they were. And so that's why I opted not to purchase them. And I tend to find I use walnuts more often. And I've been making pesto with walnuts for a long time, so I can confidently say that it's a great pine nut replacement.

Marge (00:08:49) - If you want to follow suit and you find pine nuts too expensive these days, so go for it. But this is a really simple recipes. This may be a short episode, which is kind of interesting because I am in transit, sort of, and I really I'll get to that in a minute. But this is a blender recipe, and I'll have the recipe in the show notes as per usual. But essentially you add this stuff to the blender, and then you slowly add in your infused olive oil to the ratio that you prefer, and voila! And that's it. That's all you need to do. Now I will recreate the recipe just as Zach had made it, because he does also include the steps of how much cannabis he added, like he had the steps from the beginning for like if I recall, the de carb and everything., so that if you're uncertain of certain steps you can he has it right from the beginning. D carving your cannabis right through to seasoning with salt and pepper at the end, so I'll be sure to include that as well.

Marge (00:09:47) - But just know, of course, when you take any recipe, you can make it your own in those small little ways to make it suit you and your situation the best. And in my case, that was using the regular miso that I had and not the white miso, and also using walnuts instead of pine nuts. But you slowly add in this olive oil and voila! You have got a delicious, healthy, tasty. Pesto that I think you'll love. Now, I made mine with CBD because I knew I'd be sharing it with my pops. I don't know why I said that I'd never call him pops. It's dad. Call him dad., but no cap. You went for seconds when I served it. Can I say that I. It probably won't age well on this podcast, but good thing I'm aging well. So there you go. But what I did with it for the first time that I made it is I used it in a pasta dish, and then it was a pasta dish with the pesto and some vegetables I cooked up to go with it, and it was so good.

Marge (00:10:46) - He went for seconds and he doesn't usually do that. Normally. He is the fellow I think I've mentioned on this show many times before, over the years, that I got my sweet tooth from my dad, so my dad's usually saving room for dessert, not for seconds. So that's how good this stuff was. He looked me straight in the eyes and just like, this is really good. And you know, my dad is of the silent generation, so he's,, he's older and doesn't give compliments necessarily too easily. But that's how good this was, because it's all fine and dandy for me to be like, hey, this was delicious. It was really good. You should make it. But you are getting a certified second hand review of this pesto from a man who didn't know it was going to make it onto the podcast, so I think that says a lot. Now, not only do we have a first and second helping of this pesto, of this pesto pasta that I use this with or for,, because I also had seconds at that night and we skipped dessert.

Marge (00:11:47) - Again, just a testament to how good this is. But then, of course, I didn't use it all because it makes quite a bit. It made a good not a full jar, but it made enough that I was able to enjoy it for a few days. And I used it on sandwiches also, and on the side with eggs, and it was so good. It was so good on sandwiches. I love pesto on sandwiches. So those were a few ideas with which you can use this delightful pesto and. If you have other ways that you like to use pesto, please let me know, because I could always include them in the show notes and let other people know how they are using their pesto. In the wild, if you take pictures, I may even be able to include that as well. Imagine that. So the infused white miso pesto by Jack Squire. He is using garlic, fresh basil leaves, the pine nuts, or in my case, walnuts, pecorino Romano cheese, a little lemon juice.

Marge (00:12:44) - I used jarred lemon. I usually have a jar of organic lemon juice in the fridge. Because I tend to find fresh lemons. I usually have great intentions and the last few end up looking hard and not juicy, and I end up tossing them the first few lemons. It's okay, but usually not by the end. So you always keep a jar of organic lemon juice in the fridge. For these particular instances, you're going to need your white miso again. I used brown miso and your half cup of infused olive oil. Of course, at a preference or at a ratio to your preference and water to adjust for preferred consistency. I skipped the water in this particular case because it didn't need it. I found and some salt to taste and chef's kiss. It was so good and I highly recommend that you try this one out if you like a pesto. Of course, some people might not, but. If you know someone who does love pesto, why not share this episode with them? Because that helps make the podcast more deliverable or deliverable more discoverable.

Marge (00:13:53) - , it helps other people discover the show. And hey, sharing is caring, isn't it? So if you know another pesto lover, they might really enjoy this. And of course, talk to me if you have some kind of recipe that you'd like me to try for the show, send it along. I've done numerous recipes on this show from people who've sent me in the recipe. Because you know what? At the end of the day, I'm not a professional cook. I'm a person who follows a lot of recipes. Yes, sometimes I can get creative in the kitchen when I'm making some dinner or whatever. But I love recipes and I know there's people out there, chefs who have been doing this for a long time who are brilliant in the kitchen, and I love learning from them and trying out their creative recipes that they are doing. And there's plenty of people out there who are sending me their recipes that are brilliant in their own way, in their own kitchens. So by all means, and you can always talk to me via email, the podcast hotline, DM me on Instagram.

Marge (00:14:47) - That's the social platform I'm most active on. You can always hit me up at Bite Me Cannabis Club. If you haven't joined that yet, please consider doing it because it's going to be free for the first hundred members so I can get that thing going. And of course, you know what else is just as tasty as pesto? The products and services and the Marge Recommends page, so I recommend you check that out as well. If you're looking for anything to help elevate your edibles making game. Before I close off, I should say if you have any feedback to the audio, I suppose it doesn't matter because I won't be doing a whole lot more recording in this particular space. But I am going to be headed to Europe for a little bit, and I am not in my regular home office, so if it doesn't sound as per the typical podcasting qual sound quality, that would probably be why I find myself in an unusual space that I'm not normally in to record. But I am learning that sometimes you gotta gotta roll with it, and sometimes you're not in your normal recording space.

Marge (00:15:48) - I normally have like more equipment that I'm using, but this one, I just plug the mic right into the laptop and here I am recording. So I hope it's sounding good on your end. And I'm really excited about the time I'm going to be spending in Europe as well, because I've never been. And. As I record this, Germany is about to legalize, so we've got some exciting, cool things coming up in the cannabis world which will hopefully start to open up doors and other places for other people as well. I have the benefit of being in Canada, where we legalized over five years ago. It's not perfect, but no one has to look over their shoulder anymore. And when I went out to visit my friends out West in January, how cool was it that I could fly home with an ounce of weed in my bag like. It's just from so many vantage points. It's so wonderful. So anytime a place opens up and and sees the benefit of not criminalizing people who enjoy a plant in its myriad of forms, I mean, what other plant out there can you can smoke it, vaporize it, eat it, rub it on your skin, eat, eat the seeds for health, like I tell you, because I I'm always reminded that even those people who don't ingest cannabis to get medicated can benefit from the topicals and oils and stuff when it's slathered on your skin.

Marge (00:17:13) - So I'm excited about what the future holds. I'm feeling optimistic, even as sometimes it doesn't feel super optimistic in this world. But I hope this podcast is a bit of a safe space for you all in a strange and turbulent time in which we find ourselves. I'm your host, Marge. And until next time, my friends, stay high.