Pumpkin Seeds

Some people (cough cough Mom cough cough) hate carving pumpkins for one reason- the innards. Oooey, goooey, and squishy are just not some people's forte. Call me gross, whatever, but I LOVE scooping out pumpkins- probably more than I love actually carving them. I have no artistic talent, or enough patience, to sit and carve out a beautiful or truly scary pumpkin. One year I tried to make Chris a Texas Longhorns pumpkin- it just looked like a fat peanut with two bugles coming out to the top of it. He laughed at me. So did all his friends. I digress....

I wasn't really a huge fan of pumpkin seeds until Kristin Lynn made them for me. Every year she makes the most delicious seeds, in so many flavor combos, and she gets me hooked on them to the point where I feel I should enter a rehab center. I wish she could have been here with us today as I was making mine!

Ok, so instead of harassing Kristin for her recipes, I resorted to Food Network Magazine's newest fall issue. They have a whole middle insert on making them.

Basic instructions:

* Clean out pumpkin. Put pumpkin guts into bowl. Sort through the guts and extract as many seeds as you can from the goo. Place seeds in colander and rinse seeds well to clean them. Do not dry with paper towel (FN Mag suggestion).

* Place seeds on oiled cookie sheet and place in 300 oven for 30 minutes to dry the seeds unseasoned.

* Place dried (and slightly oily) seeds in a bowl to season. I made three different varieties today. I have them listed below with the seasonings I used. To start all three, I drizzled a small amount of olive oil over the dried seeds...

Variety #1: Basic Salt

After drizzling with olive oil, sprinkle seeds with salt. I didn't have sea salt (I wish I had) but the basic table kind worked just fine!

Variety #2: Sweet

After drizzling with olive oil, sprinkle with cinnamon and granulated sugar. Do not salt (FN Mag stressed this)

Variety #3: Italian

Drizzle with olive oil. Toss seeds with grated parmesan and dried oregano.



Once you have seasoned your seeds, they will need to go back onto the cookie sheet and into the oven for another 20 minutes. Be sure to have a few right out of the oven- nothing better than a nice and toasty pumpkin seed... its a perfect fall snack!