Cooking with Cannabis: A Simple Recipe for Coffee Crusted Pork Tenderloin

Margaret 00:00:04 What happens when you take a love of food, a passion for culture, and a deep knowledge of cannabis and you toss them all into one bowl? You get Bite Me! The podcast that explores the intersection of food, culture and cannabis and helps cooks make great edibles at home for less money. I'm your host, Margaret, a certified Ganjier Tsai certified Cannabis educator, and I believe your kitchen is the best dispensary that you'll ever have. Together, we'll explore the stories, the science, and the sheer joy of making safe, effective, and unforgettable edibles at home. So pre-heat your oven and get ready for a great episode. Let's dive in! And today we are at episode 339 and boy do I have an episode for you. Today we're going to be looking at a coffee crusted pork tenderloin, which I'm really excited to share. We're doing another recipe today, but I've got some other things for you. And the funny thing is, I recorded this episode and I was just like, oh, this is so great.

Margaret 00:01:00 And then I go and I look. And I did not actually hit record. I forgot to hit record. So I'm recording this whole thing because I was like at the end of the episode when I was going to go hit, you know, stop recording. And I realized that I wasn't recording at all. So that's on me. But anyway, I am excited to share with you a wonderful fan mail from a listener, as well as a story and the coffee crusted pork tenderloin. So let's get into it. This one comes from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Yes, we are international, baby. Hi Margaret, I just wanted to say hello and thank you. I've been a long time listener and follower, initially from high on Home Grown with Mackey, but I am using your site more and more. I've been growing my own and making oil for a number of years. Edibles are excellent and your expertise on them has been invaluable. I also resonate more with your humanitarian socialist leaning.

Margaret 00:02:02 I live in Scotland, so it's illegal indoor groves for me. Only I could babble on for ages. But my main point is thank you for the information and the entertainment. And I just want to say thank you for sharing this really kind and thoughtful message. I really appreciate it. And if you want to send your own, just go to your podcast player and the app and you'll see at the top of the show notes, I believe just hit fan mail and you can send me a text message. Sadly, I can't respond to them except on here, so you have to listen in for me to read it out. But I really appreciate the sentiment in this message, and it really confirms why I'm doing this, because I want to spread the message of edibles all over the world and how wonderful they are, especially for folks who are looking for alternatives to smoking. And I also wanted to mention that he found me through high and homegrown with Mackie, and I am on a pretty I'm a regular panel member on the Sunday show, and I've met a lot of really great people through that show.

Margaret 00:02:57 I've learned a lot about growing myself through that show because I'm probably the least experienced grower of the group of people there. Edibles is definitely more my area of expertise than growing, but I do. I do love to grow. I consider myself more of a hobby grower, but I've learned so I've learned a lot. Alongside all the people there. You should check that out as well. Now, before we get into the next segment of today's show, take out your phone right now. If you want to leave a fan mail, please do, but also text this episode to somebody right now. Send it. Share this episode with somebody right now because it really does help support the show. And I want to keep this show ad free as long as possible. I mean, I do occasionally have ads on it, mostly from other independent podcasters through my podcasting platform or some of my own ads for stuff that I'm doing. Can you remember if I have one on there right now? I should probably check that.

Margaret 00:03:47 And I also encourage you to check out the Bite Me Cannabis Club. Today's story is probably not what you would expect, but I should back up a little bit. As some of you may know, some of you, if you've been listening to the show for a little bit, you know that I've been living with my father for the last couple of years, and sometimes I'd think about him being out here by himself in a really breaks my heart. My mom passed away nine years ago at this point. My dad has been slipping a little bit, especially, I would say in the last 3 to 6 months. I've definitely been noticing, you know, some more short term memory loss. I have to remind him about more things. I kind of have to help him out with some more things because he's befuddled by things that used to be second nature. And I was also really grateful that I was here during the really big ice storm that we had last spring. That was really devastating, and we were without power for five days.

Margaret 00:04:41 But recently my dad was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. They caught it early by accident when he was getting a scan for something else. It prompted a series of more scans and tests that he had to undergo, and we finally did get the official diagnosis that my dad has lung cancer, and it's something really difficult to sit with in a way, because for most of his adult life, he has spent very little time in hospitals. He's been a remarkably robust and healthy man. Last spring, he had to undergo a pretty routine procedure for a separate health condition. Hasn't necessarily gone very smoothly, and it required a numerous hospital visits and doctor's visits, which, you know, really did frustrate him because prior to this, the last time my dad had been in the hospital was at least 30 years ago. He's always been really healthy. I don't even remember him ever getting sick that often. So yeah, he has this diagnosis of lung cancer. And so I was consulting with a woman who uses cannabis as a as a treatment for cancer.

Margaret 00:05:41 And while I have no illusions that this is going to cure his cancer, I do hope that introducing some cannabis into his life will help him with anxiety and some pain management. I mean, again, it's very early, so he's not really exhibiting any real symptoms at this point, although the doctors have said that untreated it's coming and I have been starting him with a CBG CBD oil that he's taking twice a day. We started at the very lowest possible dose we're building up because CBD and CBD, or those non intoxicating cannabinoids do have to accumulate in your body for several days before they really start to take any effect. And just remember, just because they're not intoxicating doesn't mean they're not psychoactive. And that is why people take CBD or CBD or those related cannabinoids. Because they are psychoactive. They do have an effect. They just don't get you high. So I've started him on this, and then I also made some suppositories because those would have THC in them. And the woman that I was consulting with was telling me that you don't get high from them, at least when you use them rectally.

Margaret 00:06:45 But I'm going to be doing a whole episode on this because I find the science behind that really fascinating. And you can, of course, make your own suppositories. So she recommended I start at 25mg with a 6 to 1 ratio of THC to CBD because they don't get you high. We want to make sure you tolerate it. Okay? But you have so many blood vessels. When you insert them in the anus, there's so many blood vessels that it will uptake the cannabinoids, but bypasses the liver so it doesn't get you high, which is super fascinating. So I made these suppositories at her dosage recommendation to start because she said with that, you could also increase the dose over time. I was like, but I have to test them on myself. I can't inadvertently I can inadvertently dose my dad by accident because, you know, there is. She did say if you put them up, put them up there far enough you can get high. But I don't think that's really an issue for most people.

Margaret 00:07:41 But you do want to make sure that you tolerate it. And I didn't want to get my dad high. He has, you know, tried CBD before, but he's never smoked cannabis. He's never used intoxicating cannabis. Fast forward a few days after I had these suppositories made, and I was waiting for a good time to test them out on myself. And I'm working in the office on something related to Bite me. I'm sure my dad comes in with a takeout container and there's a hole at the bottom of it. He's like, do you know how that got there? I'm looking at this container and I know exactly how it got there, because it had been in the freezer and there was some stuff in it, but it was just inexpensive plastic, so it cracked from being in the cold. But that wasn't really what I was interested in. I was like, where did you get that? And he's like, well, in the freezer. I was like, what was in it? It's like there was like a piece of cake.

Margaret 00:08:27 He's like, I was like, what? What happened to the cake? Because I'm starting to feel a little concerned. And he said, well, I ate it. Friends, I don't think words can really describe that moment when my eyes probably went wide and I tried not to say it, and I didn't say it out loud, but in my mind I'm like, oh no. I had in the back of the freezer, behind a pile of meat pies and a tub of ice cream. A single piece of cake. It was the last piece I had made a cake a while ago, cut it up into squares, consume some of it fresh, but froze the excess because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat it in time before it went stale or bad or whatever. I had labeled the container, but for whatever reason, my dad decided to go into the freezer at the back, despite having a cupboard only a few feet away, filled with cookies and chocolate covered granola bars and Joe Lewis and other sweets that he buys for himself all the time, there's always stuff in that cupboard.

Margaret 00:09:29 He has a sweet tooth. I've mentioned that many times on this show why he went for this particular piece of cake with the green painter's tape on it and a label at the back of the fridge, and he said, yeah, it was really good. I was like, I bet it was. I was like, dad, there was weed in that. And he's like, oh, really? I'm like, yeah, he's like, what's going to happen? I'm like, you're probably going to get high. And he's like, he kind of laughed it off and didn't think anything of it. And I was like, well, we'll see what his tolerance is at his at. I mean, tolerances vary between person to person. How many times have I said this on this show? They can vary wildly. All I know is that there were about 12.5mg, and every time I ate one, I got pretty high from them. So fast forward like an hour or so and I think my dad's starting to feel it.

Margaret 00:10:21 I'm having some conversations with him. I can tell he's starting to feel it. He's laughing about it a little bit, but he's also sort of staring off into space, not really sure what to do with himself. He's laughing about it though. But then I'm like, nervous because I'm like, if he's just at this point, like he's just starting to get high, like it hasn't even really he hasn't peaked yet. And I did what I could to make him as comfortable as possible. But he was finding it like I think he was experiencing a lot of sensory overload. At one point, I put on a show on YouTube because he watches a lot of YouTube videos at his Computer Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean. So I put that on for him, and he's listening to it for like 5 or 10 minutes, and then he shuts it off. I'm like, oh, okay. And then he goes out to the living room and he turns on the TV. I'm like, maybe he'll just relax and watch some TV.

Margaret 00:11:07 And he does that for about ten minutes, and then he shuts that off and I'm like, well, would you like to listen to some music? Maybe that would help. You know, you might enjoy just relaxing some music. And he's like, no, I don't think so. Again, I think he's feeling a lot of sensory overload and unfamiliar feelings in his body, and he's not really sure what to do with it because he kind of keeps saying, like, I don't really know what to do with myself. At one point I'd offered him peppercorns like early on because I've of course heard from many sources, but I've never actually tried it out myself. That peppercorns can help bring you down. There's something about the terpene carry, a filling that is a good antidote to getting too high on THC. But he wouldn't take them. I was like, for fuck's sake, he asked me to go out and get his cane because he was really feeling wobbly on his feet. Now he just got this cane not that long ago, and I don't think he really needs it.

Margaret 00:11:56 The man walks around the house like a much younger man. You would never guess from his gait that he is 94 years old, but I think he likes to have it in the car for when he's like going from the car to a store or something like that. So I went out and got the cane for him. He used it for the rest of the night. At one point I suggested, hey, why don't you go lie down? Maybe you'll feel more comfortable. So he did, and I was sitting in the living room because I was talking to some people on the phone. I had to call my friend. I was supposed to go to her house for dinner. And obviously when my dad dosed himself, I had to call her up and cancel because there was no way I could or let my dad get really high and then be like, bye, I have plans. So I was talking to her and my dad was lying down, and about four times he would get up, he would come out to the living room with his cane and he would say something like, the first time, this is what he said.

Margaret 00:12:47 He's like, I'm here, but I'm not here. Then he would keep walking. He went out and got a drink of water and then went back to bed because I'm pretty sure he had cottonmouth. He did that several more times before he finally went to bed and stayed asleep. I was telling him, look, you know, you're going to feel a little overwhelmed, but just no doubt that you're okay. You're safe. Nothing bad will happen. You just have to relax and let it pass. I'm not really sure how much that was helpful for him, but he did finally go to bed and he said he slept okay that night. He did wonder why people would do that to themselves the next morning because he was like, I never want to do that again. And I did have to let him know that at an appropriate dose. That's a much different experience, far more enjoyable, and that he had taken too much. Thankfully, he is also not adverse to continuing with the CBG and the CBD oil and the suppositories, so he's just never going to want to get high again.

Margaret 00:13:44 This is just a reminder how easily it can happen. And yes, my container was labeled, but as I think about it, I have to really question my own labeling. It doesn't really occur to me that somebody would be digging into the back of the freezer for some random container of food items. My labeling could have been more clear. It did have the date, it did have the potency information, but now that I think about it, I could have put on here contains cannabis. Anything that would have been a little more clear about what was in that container, so that he would know before eating it that perhaps this is something he should ask about first, and of course, why he didn't ask about it. I don't know. He literally ate my last piece of cake. Bold move. And you paid the price for it. But again, I did have to apologize to him. That is something I have to reckon with. I'm very grateful that nothing bad happened, that I was there to support him through this, that I can make suggestions to make him more comfortable, even as I knew he was probably feeling very uncomfortable.

Margaret 00:14:44 Let this be the PSA so you don't have to have a story like this. Your label is only as good as the information on it. Moving forward, I will be much more clear on my labeling when something has cannabis in it, because I'm not sure he totally understood all the info on the label. And of course why he didn't ask me. I'm not really sure because obviously it was a handwritten label, but that's on me. Yes, my dad was recently diagnosed with cancer, and I was partly responsible for him getting completely wrecked on a Thursday night. On to today's recipe. Shall we? This will be a brief one. So this is a coffee crusted pork tenderloin. Now, I will say I used to really not like pork tenderloin because I always found it. I always cooked it and I would it would get really dry. And there's nothing worse than dry pork tenderloin. So I didn't really like it for a long time. But there's a couple of things that I learned about making a lot of meat.

Margaret 00:15:37 And I got this tip from the salt fat Acid Heat, a documentary that was aired on Netflix like a long time ago. And then I bought her cookbook. But one of the biggest takeaways I took from her approach to cooking was to salt your meat ahead of time. You know you can do it for 24 hours ahead, but if you don't have that long time, 12 hours, six hours, it it is all helpful. I almost always, once the meat is thawed because I take a lot of stuff out of the freezer, I will salt it and nothing too crazy. Like you're not curing the meat or anything like that, but you put a, you sprinkle it with some salt on all sides and that really does help to tenderize it. And I've never had a dry piece of meat ever since. So that's my little tip for you today. Beyond that, this one's really easy. I also find that pork tenderloin I don't know, price wise, it still seems to be like a relatively decent, decently priced cut of meat.

Margaret 00:16:28 And I also like it because you can roast this, you can make it on your barbecue as well. I've done tenderloins on my barbecue too, but you usually have leftovers. This recipe called for one and a half pounds. I don't know how how big mine was. I didn't really look. I didn't bother to look. I just knew there was one in the freezer. So I took it out. But basically, you're making a rub for this. Your rub is going to have instant espresso powder. I just used instant coffee. You need some brown sugar, paprika, smoked paprika. I had smoked paprika, but not sweet. And so I just used the one if you have both great and fun fact, there are two kinds of salt freshly ground black pepper and olive oil and butter. I don't remember using butter at all, but essentially you're going to preheat your oven to 400 degrees. You combine all the ingredients of the rub, and you coat it on your pork until it's completely coated. You drizzle it with a tablespoon of olive oil and you let it sit for ten minutes.

Margaret 00:17:22 I actually forgot to drizzle it with the olive oil. So there's that and it will still work. I let it sit for ten minutes, but I did also salt this pork tenderloin that morning. I had taken it out of the freezer the night before, salted it that morning, and then I did the rub when I was ready to cook it. And then basically you are adding the remaining olive oil and butter to a large oven safe pan. I forgot the butter completely so I didn't even do that. You brown it on all sides on your stove, and you toss it in the oven and let it cook. I think about 15 minutes. Mine probably took more like 20 minutes to get it to 145 degrees. Do you let it rest for ten minutes before serving. Delicious. It was fantastic. That rub was really nice. Now, of course, you're probably like. But, Margaret, how did you infuse it? And once again, I'm going to add a little olive oil onto the tenderloin and then I can tailor it.

Margaret 00:18:13 And I know that my dad is not going to be having any THC on his because he is a little bit, a little bit hesitant for his recent experience. Of course, you could also use some of your infused butter or olive oil, whatever you have on any of your side. I just put some stuff right on my pork tenderloin and it was fantastic. Very easy. This was a great, easy recipe. And again, you could probably enjoy that. And in numerous different types of climates. I'm trying to think of all my worldwide friends because like I said, this podcast is worldwide baby woo. I felt like a marathon man. I feel like I've been talking forever. Probably because like I said, I had to record this episode a second time. If you have been a listener for a long time or you're just joining us for the first time, I really appreciate you. I'm so glad that you're here. This podcast wouldn't exist without you, without my friends. I'm going to love you and leave you.

Margaret 00:18:58 And until next week, stay curious and stay high.